Minerals Illuminating Colors & Serendipity by Shu-Lin Wu

Minerals Illuminating Colors & Serendipity by Shu-Lin Wu

August 8, 2018

By [email protected]

Exhibitions, Expositions

MINERALS ILLUMINATING COLORS

Solo exhibition by Shu-Lin Wu

SERENDIPITY

Curated by Shu-Lin Wu, Taiwan

Invited artists:

Wei-Hsuan Chang, Yung-Huei Chao, Yu-Chun Chen, Min-Ling Hsieh, Carissa Wen-Hsien Hsu, Tzu-Ling Lee, Philip Sajet, Terhi Tolvanen, An-Chi Wang, I-Ting Wang, Cai-Xuan Wu, Janny Huan Yokota & Shu-Lin Wu

Date: September 6 – 30, 2018

To start the 2018 season, Galerie Noel Guyomarc’h is delighted to host two simultaneous exhibitions featuring the work of Taiwanese artist Shu-Lin Wu, whose latest series Minerals Illuminating Colors will be presented in preview alongside Sérendipité / Serendipity, a collective traveling exhibition she herself curated. Both projects feature Shu-Lin Wu’s interest for rough semi-precious stones, a passion that goes back to her early years and that she was keen on sharing with other European and Taiwanese contemporary artists.

Born in Taipei in 1980, Shu-Lin Wu completed a Bachelor of Arts at the Fu-Jen Catholic University before studying in Strasbourg School of Decorative Arts, France, where she pursued two degrees in plastic arts. Working and experimenting, she participated in several workshops with internationally recognized artists, several about stone cutting. At the time, she was exhibiting her porcelain pieces in Europe, Asia and in the United States. Back in Taiwan, she dedicated herself to her work, and organized exhibitions to introduce a whole new audience to creative jewelry. Represented by Noel Guyomarc’h since 2010, she was invited to exhibit with Dutch artist Peter Hoogeboom in 2014. Their joint exhibition, Greenware, Crockery, Chinawear, consisted in porcelain and in earthenware pieces, each of them inspired by the other’s culture. One of them was acquired by Montreal Museum of Fine Arts for its permanent collection.

Minerals Illuminating Colors, Shu-Lin Wu’s latest series, follows Les 4 Saisons, a previous series in which she used porcelain, wood and silver. Minerals Illuminating Colors, however, features rough semi-precious stones, a material Shu-Lin Wu discovered at an early stage and that she finds enormously stimulating to work with: the shine, color and evocative power of the uncut stones provide her with a never-ending source of inspiration to make jewelry.

Shu-Lin Wu & Noel Guyomarc’h, 2014 During the exhibition Greenware, Crockery, Chinawear, a duo with Peter Hoogeboom

Undoubtedly poetic, her pieces pay tribute to nature. Having worked between East and West for years, Shu-Lin Wu is aware of how the meaning of a color can differ from a continent to another. Each element, stone and color are selected very carefully and used to arouse specific senses and memories. Her pieces are like small paintings varying with seasons and time, snapshots of a nature illuminated by the uncanny, almost unreal shine of the gems she selected.

Sérendipité / Serendipity,a collective traveling show, was born when Shu-Lin Wu challenged 12 European and Taiwanese artists to include rough semi-precious stones into their work. She wished to share her passion for the material and to stimulate a new corpus of pieces. The initiative sparkled an unexpected enthusiasm and resulted in very promising contributions.

Philip Sajet, a France based Dutch jeweler, has been using stones for more than 20 years. His highly recognizable work balances materials that are smooth and raw, rough and soft, old and contemporary. He also quite exceptionally handles color. Finnish Terhi Tolvanen, who also works in France, mixes organic and engineered materials to question our relationship with nature through surprising and atypical designs.

Taiwanese artists – several of them had previously been invited by Noel Guyomarc’h to Montreal – differ from Sajet and Tolvanen as minerals do not usually belong to their artistic vocabulary. Integrating the stones was therefore a challenge. Janny Huang Yokota instinctively organizes her« found sanctum » to provide a harbor for the gem. An-Chin Wang’s baroque-style shapes in oxidized silver are specifically designed to receive it. Both Cai-Xuan Wu and Yung-Huei Chao subtly included luminous stones, such as crystals and aquamarines, in the pieces of their previous collections. The former transforms acrylic into smooth moving pieces that question our perception of this solid material. Adding stones allowed her to reflect on their constant natural growth within artificial environments. The later uses interlocking and overlapping elements to suggest how the environment is always transforming. I-Ting Wang and Wei-Hsuan Chang both convey sensory experiences of strolling in nature through very different-looking pieces. Carissa Wen-HsienHsu takes up to what stones formerly projected to bring back child’s memories of discovering the world, while Tzu-Ling Lee’s approach tends to question the affective or monetary value we put in collecting gems. Min-Ling Hsieh’s minimalist creations, made of gold and crystals, play with light to open up new spaces, while Yu-Chun Chen uses the desert varnish from Mongolian Gobi Desert. The varnish, found on the rocks like a double layer, allows her to express the idea of duality, an essential concept to her work and an extended metaphor in his rings creations.