Artwork Appreciation
HOU Chun-Ming is born in Liujiao Township, Chiayi County, and often signs his works with Liujiao Houshi. His early works involve installations and print arts, and were regarded as avant-garde pieces that challenged social taboos. Recently, HOU Chun-Ming has directed his attention to a series of self-exploration of freestyle calligraphy and developed an artistic approach based upon Chinese characters.
Characters occupy the center stage in this series of works. HOU Chun-Ming believes that every word is a magical symbol with summoning powers. In Wonderful, HOU Chun-Ming took apart the two characters that compose the phrase and recombined them to form a single character that was never seen before. This composite may seem awkward at first, but viewers will eventually be able to discern the forms of the original words.
Every stroke that composes the black and white characters created by HOU Chun-Ming conveys pure visual aesthetics. The process of taking words apart and recombining them grants them new meanings, and the very act of writing these new composite characters seem to summon a magical force of sorts.