Chen Lai-Shing

Chen Lai-Shing was born in 1949 and raised in the provincial town of Chan-Hua. He underwent ordinary school education like any youngster and then spent three years 1969-1972 at the Taiwan College of Art. From there he embarked on a neglected but turbulent career as a painter. Chen Lai-Shing has lived all his life in Taiwan, and his paintings are inspired by an acute sense of the changing moods and tempers of the everyday life around him. Although rebellious and uncompromising as a youth. Chen has in his paintings found comfort for a nervous and unsettled inner life, which both informs and distorts his vision, and guides his art to its unique destiny. Chen's early work was deeply influenced by European Expressionists, whole preference for strong emotional colors and visual distortions. Chen's work gradually matured into a freely indulged and emotionally charged style which energetically produced a myriad of flashes of the world as sensed by him. Chen's paintings are marked by an ambivalent sense of the innocence and complications of the world. They are strong and articulate statements of the inner life of a new urban generation which grew up with the newly matured indigenous culture of Taiwan. The artistic versatility of Chen and his authenticity distinguishes him as one of the important new artists of The Republic of China.