The Prince in the Attic

作品賞析

Artist Chang Kai-Hsiang depicts his own state of mind with realistic painting techniques, and uses Lego blocks, which had special significance in his childhood, as a kind of identification sign for his creations. In The Prince in the Attic, he depicts the attic of a huge, tall Lego house from four perspectives and with four basic colors—red, yellow, green, and blue—representing four different kinds of environment. The chameleon climbing on the tower is a metaphor for the self, which changes its appearance chameleon-like to adapt to different environments, and spends most of its time in the house, passing a quiet, stable life like a fetus in its mother’s body. Chang Kai-Hsiang always smooths and polishes the surface before painting and begins to paint only after removing traces of the canvas. If you examine the work closely, you can see that the surface is exceptionally smooth, without any texture—it is as smooth as a digital print. This persistent practice also makes the lustrous exterior of the plastic Lego blocks seem even more realistic against the smooth, delicate background.