Artwork Appreciation
The artist Chen Ming Te draws materials from ordinary, common scenes in his life, and through his selection and transformation process, he expresses peacefulness and depth, as well as the unique charms of Taiwan. He believes that adding houses to a scene lets us see the traces of people and their lives. Therefore, in Lane 182, Zhonghua Road, the sheet-metal construction commonly used for building additions in Taiwan has become a creative motif for him, which he uses to show the “traces of people and their lives.” The outer appearance of sheet-metal buildings changes significantly over time, but they have become part of the scenery of local life. For Chen Ming Te, the three-dimensional texture of architectural space is very important, though it cannot be fully expressed through two-dimensional painting. He thus creates a raised effect in the picture by welding copper strips together for the window bars and attaching them to the wood panel. Chen uses various media flexibly to simulate the variety of building surface textures and add concave and convex visual effects to the composition.