Located in a row house some ten minutes from the Taiwan High Speed Rail station in Taichung, Hung Yi’s studio workshop features a colorful spider rising from its top floor that attracts the notice of passersby from far away.
As in the past, Hung focuses on animal works that are fun and colorful. These have always caught the attention of crowds. In April of this year, Hung mobilized more than a dozen workers, shipping 40 large sculptures in four large containers to San Francisco. He was the first Taiwanese artist ever to have an exhibition at San Francisco’s City Hall. Hung’s works had gone abroad previously for an exhibition in the Hakone Open Air Museum in Japan in 2013, but this was his largest overseas exhibition.
Hung Yi has been an artist for more than ten years, and his works can be found in places across Taiwan. Among his most visible works are Big Cat (2009) installed outside of the Fubon Financial Holdings building near Taipei’s Ren’ai traffic circle; Rabbit Articulate, Dog Loyalty, and Heart-Shaped Snail, which were exhibited at the 2014 Taoyuan Land Arts Festival; and various works at Shin Kong Mitsukoshi department stores.
Not a typical path to art
Although a graduate of the arts program at Ming-Dao High School, Hung Yi has an unusual background for an artist.
Raised in Taichung’s Wuri, Hung, like many children, would sometimes paint or draw for fun, but he showed more natural talent than most. He was admitted to a selective fine arts class, where he was often chosen to design classroom posters. Those experiences of illustrating as a young child are what pushed him to enroll in the arts program at Ming-Dao. Once he had decided that he wanted to become an artist, he chose to enlist in the military early, so that his earlier service would add points to his aggregate admissions score when applying for tertiary art programs.
Yet he didn’t end up going to art school. Based on various considerations, he decided to give up that dream and instead found work as a waterbed salesman, an interior designer, and even a foreman at construction sites.
In the 1990s, when bubble tea was all the rage, Hung changed tracks to open his own bubble tea shop. At the peak of the craze, Hung owned nine such establishments. It would seem that he was moving farther and farther from his dreams of becoming an artist, but handling the interior design of the shops was satisfying his creative hunger. “The shops were extremely colorful and full of pictures,” Hung recalls. “They were pretty crazy!” Each of those energetic creative works was in fact a statement of silent protest against Taiwan’s mainstream.
Hung explains that Taiwan’s art world back then put a lot of emphasis on orthodox training and traditional skills—so much so that it ended up boxing art in. He and likeminded friends would submit works for cutting-edge art shows, but they’d get rejected for lack of academic credentials.
It made him angry, and in a fit of pique he and two artist friends went ahead and invested NT$1 million to establish the Taichung X Generation Art Gallery, so they could exhibit their own art. Over the course of nine months, the gallery only held three exhibitions, “but we managed to burn through all the money by the time we closed,” recalls Hung.
With that artistic dream out of financial reach, Hung put in ten years in the food and drink industry, before closing down because business was bad. “To put it plainly, the business failed, and I had nothing.” At a low point, he decided to return to artistic creation, and art gave him a new lease on life.
A new start with art
In 2000, Art Stock 20, the railway warehouse turned arts village behind the Taichung Train Station, was taking applications for residencies. At a friend’s suggestion, Hung submitted a few works, and much to his surprise and delight he was accepted. Thinking back on that twist of fate, Hung says calmly, “Perhaps it was God telling me that art had all along been my calling.”
He was living for the first time as an artist, and Hung admits that it took some getting used to. Earlier, the bold designs and art in his teashops would attract young oddballs and artists brimming with ideas, so he was well aware of how artists could get consumed by their work and shut themselves off from the world.
Nevertheless, when he actually became an artist, Hung not only had to readjust, but he also had to overcome his own insecurities about a lack of credentials. “Although a degree doesn’t represent artistic success, when I saw how six or seven of the other artists in the village had master’s degrees,” Hung recalls, “I couldn’t help but feel some pressure.” He felt quite anxious about it, until a Taichung collector paid him a special visit and expressed interest in buying his work. It was only then that those insecurities began to fade.
After the village’s lease ran out in 2004, he rented warehouse space at the old train station in Puzi, Chiayi County. By then, Hung had also begun to work on more challenging pieces, sculptures that were very expensive to create. After 2004, most of Hung’s works were sculptures, and he established a model of working with businesses. Over the next two years he gradually shed the habits and styles of his early period and laid the foundation for his current style.
In 2013, Hung’s creative success reached a new level. The Hakone Open Air Museum in Japan invited him to exhibit, and he brought several dozen sculptures for a show entitled “Happy Animal Party.” It was only the second time a Taiwanese sculptor had been invited for an exhibition there. (Ju Ming had had an exhibit there 18 years earlier.) As far as Hung was concerned, the invitation from the prestigious Japanese museum, which only deals with artists of a high caliber, was a great affirmation of his talents.
Not too late to launch his career
Even in comparison with other artists, Hung’s creative path has been a bumpy and winding one, but he never wavered in his love of art. And he never had any regrets about not deciding to devote himself to art until he was 30: “If I hadn’t experienced those ten years of hard knocks out in society, I wouldn’t have had my later creative energy,” he says.
Taken as a whole, Hung’s work—from his early efforts to his recent large-scale works—reveal visual structures created by overlapping forms and complicated lines. These visual structures are the common thread that runs through all of his works, the most distinct characteristic of his oeuvre. His creative methods demonstrate his observant understanding of society and people after working in the “real world” for ten years.
Hung explains that in the working world he had to establish bonds with fellow workers. Then when he was running his business he had to deal with people from all stations and walks of life, year after year. It trained his powers of observation. Consequently, the complex patterns of overlaid lines in his work are his way of expressing artistically that “life is complicated, society is complicated and everyone is his own universe.”
What’s more, Hung Yi also hopes through his art to express the special sensibility of Eastern society and culture. He explains that the West, after many years of development, has completely absorbed the precepts of modernization and rationality, whereas Eastern social norms emphasizing respect for elders and traditional etiquette still have a powerful pull in Taiwan, creating a complicated mix.
Everywhere in Hung’s art you can see vibrant, sharply contrasting colors. These are even better demonstrations of how Hung draws inspiration from life around him. The bold use of color found in many of his pieces draws on the influence of temple architecture. Hung says he takes inspiration from little details that he happens upon in the world around him. Consequently, he still maintains the habit he formed when young of carrying a sketchbook with him. Wherever he goes, he sketches. “Reviewing my sketches sometimes stimulates creative ideas.”
He has gained international acclaim, but Hung Yi still has a dream he has yet to fulfill. In recent years, apart from creating new works of art, Hung has been looking for locations in Taiwan to establish a sculpture garden of his own, a place where he can install works he has created over many years. It will allow members of the public to see them all at once. “With a sculpture garden, my works wouldn’t be scattered. The public could come to one place to gain a general sense of my creative output.” This is an instance where Hung needn’t pull out his sketchbook: In his mind the outlines of that beautiful, colorful dream are clearly delineated.
With his unconventional style, Hung Yi creates colorful works that have a childlike playfulness. (photo by Jimmy Lin)
Hung Yi’s works Lucky Tiger
Hung Yi’s works Female Tree.
The Hakone Open Air Museum in Japan gave Hung Yi some international renown by inviting him to exhibit. Ju Ming, who had a show there 18 years earlier, was the only Taiwanese artist to exhibit there before Hung.
“Aiming to bring people joy” is the guiding ethos behind Hung Yi’s creative expression.
Hung Yi’s Year of the Horse exhibition at the Shin Kong Mitsukoshi department store. His works are installed in locations throughout Taiwan. The bright colors and cute designs never fail to attract the notice of passersby.
