TOP Go to the main content section

Taipei Travel

Best Place Map Series : Solo Exhibition of Qi-Heng Xiao

Anchor point

Post date:2023-03-08

Updates:2023-04-10

826

Best Place Map Series  Solo Exhibition of Qi-Heng Xiao
Event Time
Wed. - Sun. 13:00 - 18:00
Event Location
金山南路一段67巷5號1樓, Zhongzheng Dist., Taipei City Taiwan, R.O.C
Taiwanese artist Qi-Heng Xiao's new solo exhibition Best Place Map Series presents his oil paintings created in 2022. The "Best Place Map" series exhibited at the show, as well as the anime-inspired concept of "best place" behind the works, can be regarded as an identity-searching journey that Xiao, a contemporary artist of the younger generations in Taiwan, embarked upon from his singular point of view. Through his own life experience, cultural background, and events, Xiao cross-referenced his notes and the scenery he observed and selected his "best place," compiling his selection of the best places on the Internet.


Regarding the works in this exhibition, the artist says in his creative statement:

For the works in this solo exhibition, many images suddenly came to my mind in my daily life. However, those were not inspirations but ideas close to "mistakes". The events that came into my mind would just merge with my place at the moment and form a new, yet wrong scenery. These untrue sceneries were slowly recorded by me. Nevertheless, it is difficult to record the daily scenery upon the moment of seeing it. In this case, I can only record it in words first.

Now I often use Google Map to go to places I want to go. After using it for a long time, I figured out that I can also upload photos of these places, and I can also leave a notes, reviews, and comments. I put the text stored in the memo on my mobile phone into Google Map and realized that there exist many differences between reality and the picture in my memory, and these differences make the memorized scenery unique. The term "best place" comes from the character Umemiya Ryunosuke (Dragon of the Wooden Sword) in the manga Shaman King, who is always looking for his best place. "Place" is important to him, and the "best place" is a place where he can return to his own benchmark. So, I applied this concept to my own written records of places and made the map of my best places on the Internet (link: https://goo.gl/maps/xn5V3oM-FHhwtDTSY9).

The images in my "Best Place Map" series include the scenes and events I experienced when I lived in Hsinchu from 2020 to 2021. From renting my studio to moving out, many memorable things happened. It is similar to a TV series broadcasting for two years, and ending with people around me leaving one by one and I myself was about to move out of my place. This process made me realize that finding the best place is not an easy task.


From another perspective, the works exhibited in this exhibition also reflect Xiao's rethinking of the visuality of painting. Although he is a member of the Internet generation, Xiao chose to paint in oil for this series, a medium of a profound tradition in art history. He also combined pencil sketching and ink painting in the creative process to create a distinct visual style. In terms of the subject matters, Xiao compares his notes and impressions with pictures and texts on the Internet and uses the differences as the starting point of his artistic creation. Hence, the "Best Place Map" series includes many of Xiao’s perspectives, his innovation on the tradition of oil painting, and also reflects the sensibilities and aesthetics Xiao cultivated growing up in the Internet Age.

Gallery

Recent activities

More Events
Top