Artwork Appreciation
Eastern gouache painter CHEN Yi-Chia's forte is using strong and deep color tones to create an emotional atmosphere. Her brushwork has warmth as she tries to bring people into her quiet canvass and immerse them in her painting of composed of fragments.
In Posting Box she tries to find memories of her growing up in a plain and colorless life, adding metaphor to reality to give expression of her artistic vision. In the picture is a steel cabinet stored for safekeeping long ago but whose sliding glass doors are quietly opened revealing folded paper boats and fans and other little paper projects done during childhood. It's as if she wants to tell people about the happy days of the past. A delicately colored rosemary plant is growing as it leans against one door, as if passing through time, tightly gripping our emotions. In the vocabulary of flowers, rosemary means ""reminiscence"" and its fragrance embraces a human warmth and a memory of a forgotten childhood. It's as if it is leading us into a dialog about the past and the future.
For CHEN Yi-Chia, this steel cabinet is like life's secret garden, and at the same time it is an observation of life that contrasts the past with the present. Not only does it store up the many memories of youth, it is also a window of renewed hope.