Dialogue with Bricks - Lin Shih-Fu Ceramic Solo Exhibition｜Taichung City Seaport Art Center

This exhibition primarily focuses on the grassroots figures in everyday life in Taiwan during the 1960s to 1980s. This period marked Taiwan’s economic boom and a flourishing era for the ceramics industry, with red bricks becoming a common building material for local residential architecture (detached houses).

The artist, Lin Shih-Fu, is from the Dashu District of Kaohsiung City, where the soil is particularly suitable for making bricks and tiles. Brick kilns have been established here since the Japanese colonial era, developing into a prosperous industry in the 1960s and 1970s. Due to the connection with the local industry’s history, the artist chose to use brick material to represent the life scenes from the 1960s to 1980s. He incorporates traditional architectural decorative techniques, such as "brick carving," into his personal artistic expression, using locally produced brick sizes from Dashu’s kilns. Through techniques like carving before firing, the artist showcases the simple and warm characteristics of red bricks, which are full of nostalgic charm.

The exhibited works represent a dialogue between the artist and the bricks, with the bricks conveying the warmth of everyday life. For example, during the busy harvest season in his childhood, the artist would see relatives or neighbors riding a "Kawasaki 125" (commonly known as "Wu Che") carrying baskets of harvested crops to the market, or riding a "Fujisan King" carrying fertilizer to the fields, or elderly men wearing reading glasses reading newspapers, among other scenes. The artist hopes viewers will resonate with their own childhood memories or growth experiences and engage in their own dialogue with the bricks.