YIRI ARTS is pleased to present Chen Sung Chih: Recent Works from April 24 to May 17, 2025, featuring a new body of work by Taiwanese artist Chen Sung Chih. The exhibition showcases his latest pieces from a signature series created using reclaimed wood as the primary medium.
Chen is known for his use of humble, everyday materials to explore themes of impermanence, fragility, and the passage of time. His works are characterized by a quiet and minimal aesthetic, both in texture and form, forming a distinctive visual language. In his Delicate Sensibilities #TPE Series, the cracks and patina on the surface of the wood are not only traces of natural aging, but also imprints of time’s subtle passage. Each piece of wood carries the faint yet precious beauty shaped by the weathering of time, preserving memories of the past and evoking a deep awareness of transience and vulnerability. These materials are not merely witnesses to time, but vessels that intertwine emotion between the past and present.
The series draws upon the tactile memory and material experience of Taiwan’s vernacular architectural culture. Through a sensitive observation of the temporality and imperfection of materials, the artist responds to the transformation of cultural landscapes over time. Chen’s use of reclaimed wood reflects not only an environmental concern, but also a reverence for the "ethics of cherishing things" and for the life cycle of materials. By reimagining and reshaping wood, he constructs poetic spaces where time and memory quietly reside, forming material landscapes infused with personal and collective sentiment.
With a keen sensitivity to the details of material decay and change, Chen captures the subtle shifts in life’s passage. He invites viewers to linger in a state of still presence, experiencing the slow and often imperceptible flow of time. The Delicate Sensibilities #TPE Series reveals the silent existence of materiality and resonates with Eastern philosophies of impermanence and emptiness — a worldview in which all things are constantly in flux. Through incompleteness and the hidden beauty of imperfection, Chen encourages an acute awareness of the fragile, ever-changing nature of being.
The surface of each piece of wood resembles a silhouette worn by time, containing metaphors of age and echoes of memory. These “hidden forms” are not clearly defined forms, but quiet traces embedded in the wood’s texture and grain. Each crack and mark holds a fragment of time, whispering the poetry of passing moments. The subtle beauty presented in Chen’s works is an honest expression of emotion and aesthetics — a profound meditation on time, materiality, and the cycles of life.
Artist Biography
Chen Sung Chih (b. 1978) was born in Nantou, Taiwan. He holds an MFA from the Graduate Institute of Plastic Arts, Tainan National University of the Arts. He now lives and works in Taichung, Taiwan and is a full-time assistant professor in the Department of Fine Arts at National Changhua University of Education. He is the recipient of the Hsiao Chin Creation Award (2022); the Espace Louis Vuitton Taipei Audition (First Prize; 2013); the Yi&C - 35 Visual Artist Support Prize (2012); the Visual Arts Prize of Li Chun-Shan Foundation; and the Taishin Arts Award—Top 7 of Visual Arts (2005).
Chen is a Taiwanese contemporary artist endeavoring in the creation of site-specific installation. He has been selected into international artist residency programs by numerous international art institutions, among which are the Koganecho Area Management Center (Yokohama, Japan); the ISCP (New York, USA); the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea; the Cité Internationale des Arts (Paris, France); the Visiting Arts London (London, UK); and The Townhouse Gallery (Cairo, Egypt).
His works have been included in various public and private art collections, such as the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts; the Taichung Museum of Art; the Juming Museum; and the Yeh Rong Jai Culture & Art Foundation. Over the years, he has continually presented exhibitions at the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts; the National Art Museum of China; the Taipei Fine Arts Museum; the Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts; the Museum of Contemporary Art (MoCA), Taipei; IT Park; Absolutely S.P.P; Espace Louis Vuitton Taipei; Project Fulfill Art Space; Crane Gallery; Art Basel Hong Kong, etc. His recent exhibitions include No Language ( Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei, Taiwan; 2025) ; Here Is Where We Meet( Chiayi Art Museum, Chiayi, Taiwan; 2023) ; Places of Being: Space and Materiality in Taiwan's Avant-Garde Art, 1980-2021 (National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, Taichung, Taiwan; 2021); the Wuzhen Contemporary Art Exhibition (Wuzhen, China; 2019); PyeongChang Biennial (Gangneung, Korea; 2017); Taiwan Biennial (National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, Taichung, Taiwan; 2016); Transformations: Contemporary Media and Manifestations (Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts, Kaohsiung, Taiwan; 2016); Stopping the Sun in its Course (Francois Ghebaly Gallery, Los Angeles, USA; 2015); Flourishing and Flowing (National Art Museum of China, Beijing, China; 2011); Time Unfrozen (Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Taipei, Taiwan; 2010), etc.
