Magzoid Magazine - Luxury Magazine in the Creative Space | August 2022

“I do not care much about what the subjects are in reality or photographs, I
just strive to discover, strengthen, abandon, and beautify the intrigue of the
forms I have observed.” Says Chien
- Exclusive to Magzoid
Chien Chung-Wei was
born in 1968 and
earned the master
degree in Fine Arts,
National Taiwan Normal
University. Over the years, he has
won many awards in international
competitions. In addition, he is the
first artist in Taiwan to become a
signature member and Dolphin
Fellowship of the American
Watercolor Society. He now teaches
watercolor in Taiwan and has
been invited to instruct watercolor
workshops worldwide.
The watercolor works of Chien
Chung-Wei appear to embrace
the spirits and temperament of the
Western watercolor masters over
the last two centuries. By age 32,
his works tended to be delicate and
classic and were reminiscent of the
works of William Henry Hunt and
Myles Birket Foster. After that, he
gradually focused on the expression
of the essence of watercolors.
“I do not care much about what
the subjects are in reality or
photographs, I just strive to discover,
strengthen, abandon, and beautify
the intrigue of the forms I have
observed.” Says Chien
“If we compare the various medium
“If we compare the
various medium
characteristics
of watercolor to the
different actors in a
play, then the pictorial
composition would be the
script of the play.”
characteristics of watercolor to
the different actors in a play, then
the pictorial composition would be
the script of the play.” Says Chien.
You can see the spirits of some
great watercolor masters, such as
Thomas Girtin, John Sell Cotman,
J.M.W. Turner, Winslow Homer, John
Singer Sergent, and Edward Seago,
in his works. In the meantime, he
also broke the boundary between
watercolors and oil paints. He
created a series of works using
watercolors and gouache and looked
like the Romantic oil paintings in the
19th century.
Those works totally changed
the conventional impression of
watercolors. His works are temperant
and classic in colors with masterful
brushstrokes, which endow every
character with a rich fullness. He
creates the beauty and intrigue of
form even with ordinary subjects,
and that’s the enchantment of his
watercolors. In the trend of the
contemporary art, Chien Chung-Wei
enjoys the popularity in recent years.
This seems to let us reconsider the
pictorial value of the classic spirit in
painting.
- feature@magzoid.com
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August 2022 51