Dinner Table, Lane 86, Penghu

作品賞析

For most people from Penghu, homesickness seems to be a constant issue. Artist Kao Chia-Hung takes the dining table at home during the Chinese New Year as the theme. The dining table is the center that brings together family, relatives, friends, and their emotions. As family members leave or join, the number of chairs will also increase or decrease. In the back right corner of the picture, there is a chair with a lighter color, which is a metaphor for the fact that Kao Chia-Hong himself had to leave his hometown due to the demands of making a living. He has painted many Easter lilies, a plant growing at the doorstep of his old home, on the dining table and chairs, to serve as a link to his memories. The artist skillfully combines Western printmaking techniques with eastern rice paper, using a relatively thick white cardboard as printing matrix and intaglio techniques to transfer one after another layer of images onto a rice paper as thin as cicada slough. The large areas of blank space not only create the atmosphere of traditional ink painting, but also leaves room for the viewer’s free imagination.