“Hey, still remember the exciting encounter with the first artwork you bought?”

Every collector, in their first encounter with artworks, is sure to be stricken with irresistible excitement—it may be the vigorous brushwork that speaks out your never-told ambition, the dazzling palette that lights up your day, the whimsical style that broadens your mind. Back at the exhibition, we do not simply hold our steps for the celebrated reputation of the artist or the whopping price tag their painting promises to deliver 20 years later. What makes us stop is the very thing hung on the walls that transcends geographies and cultural differences. Art opens up our senses and enables us to look at the world in an alternative approach. Life enrichment is where the value of art lies.

This Autumn, we proudly present Shining Stars as a follow-up to the well-received Brightest Star series in 2018 Autumn Auction. It features 9 artists who shine with their bold attempt to challenge traditions and explore the unbeaten path. Let’s follow their leads, be overwhelmed by their fantastic offering, and revisit our very purpose of collection.

Tender Yearning in The Light

Light Bulb Man by Lin Chien-Jung

As one of Taiwan’s premier artists, Lin Chien-Jung combines lighting and sculpture to present his own unforgettable personal language of Light Bulb Man artwork, which is collected by National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, Beijing Today Art Museum and several other art insititutions. Say Hi 2 is a classic piece in the Light Bulb Man series. The little person sits alone in a corner greeting the audience with his shining round head, glowing with warmth in the dark night. This pieces highly display artist’s creative mode of bringing art into our life space, melt the hidden loneliness, and sooth everyone’s soul as an accompanied friend.

The Bursting Free Will

Zhao Zhao: Constellations

Constellations by Zhao Zhao is from the series widely praised by both the Eastern and Western academic circles and is the largest work of the artist the series with white background and multiple constellations. Throughout his career, large pieces as such are seen only three times, implying the rarity of the auctioned work. The clean, sharp, and powerful lines generate the process of violence, revealing a sense of power on the brink of the outbreak. In contrast, the romantic name Constellations reflects individuals’ aspiration for security today. The huge contrast between theme and media center generates the transformation between violence and beauty, reminding the viewer to generate their free will. Zhao Zhao’s works are widely collected by 25 art institutions such as Switzerland The Guy & Myriam Ullens Foundation, Berlin Daimler Art Collection, and Paris DSL Collection.

Elephant as a Carrierof Blessings

The Sculpting Philosophy of Zheng Lu

Zheng Lu stands out in the contemporary sculptor community with his experimentation of shaping stainless steel into Chinese characters and constant pursuit of alternative rendering formats. His works are collected by National Theatre, Nanjing Museum, UBS and other institutions. Elephant in a Peaceful Land originates from the traditional decorative subjects "elephant carrying a vase", holding the wishes of harmony for the country and happiness to its people. The artist inscribed the description of Qian, the first among the 64 hexagrams of I Ching, in clerical script on the stainless-steel surface of the elephant, visualizing its underlying connotations. On top of that, the hollowed-out sculpture is in line with the Eastern philosophy of emptiness, bringing out in-depth spirits.

Flowing Eternity, Ejection of Dream

Liang Jen-hung’s Transevolution

In 2001, Liang Jen-hung won landmark awards in the contemporary art circle of Taiwan: Taipei Art Awards, and Kaohsiung Awards. His works are further selected into public art projects and collected by Kaohsiung Musuem of Fine Arts. His stainless steel work has sleek surface and streaming lines, moreover, the internal world. In Transevolution 23AT1033-34, artist creates a stainless steel whale, ejecting water upwards, and breathing freely. The balls on the top and in the middle, together with the tail below could rotate separately, reaching a charming and balanced beauty. Liang creates a sense of flowing power within the solid steel, and shows us the rules of cosmonature with his unique "dynamic mechanics" art form.

Like Stone, Like Life

The Cobble World of Chou Chu-Wang

As a rising star in the contemporary art world, Chou Chu-Wang impresses the viewer over the past decade with densely laid and fully detailed cobblestones that carry rich connotations. The Stones Islet from Chou’s signature series symbolizes the perfection of his techniques. Endless tiny sandstones are delineated through careful thin brush strokes, adopting an aerial perspective of the universe. Every effort counts in the view of this painting. The stone-obsessed artist conveys his artistic incarnation through his persistence, and puts out a realist rendering while chanting the hymn to life. Chou’s works are collected by National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, Taipei Fine Arts Museum and Australia White Rabbit Gallery.

Finite Motifs with Infinite Vitality

The Floral Projection by Shinji Ohmaki

Receiving great attention at Art Basel and Setouchi Triennale, Shinji Ohmaki is certainly a rising star artist. His works are collected in 25 institutions, including Takamatsu Art Museum, Contemporary Art Museum Kumamoto, and National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts. The auctioned Echoes: Crystallization – White Shirt belongs to one of the rare 5 pieces in this series. It made its debut in Ohmaki’s solo exhibition of Disappearance and Formation in Singapore in 2014. In this work, Ohmaki sealed a traditional Filipino barong in an acrylic box with crystal pigment flower motifs on its surface, to create a projective view of overlapping the traditional sewing and modern paint. Ohmaki enriches natural beauty with poetic feelings and delivers the message that the declining tradition can be revived with innovative attempts.

I, A Pen Walker And My Portrait of Life

Shi Jin-Hua’s Oil Pen Walking

The Taiwanese performance artist Shi Jin-Huahonestly reflects his bodily experience thoughts about life through his behavior art. With his featured art creation way of penwalking, he signifies a pen as the duration of a lifetime. Besides winning first prizes of Taipei Arts Award and Kaohsiung Award, he also held exhibitions at multiple establishments, including Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts, Shanghai Mingyuan Art Museum. Distinctive from his regular pencil work, Pen Walking #92 peculiarly takes oil tube to paint lines mimicking the ups-and-downs of life. As the traces extend, time is recorded through the walking. Shi finally sticks the oil tube at the center, as an ending mark of the penwalking performance, creating a spiritual portrait of the life.

A Fond Dream Reoccurring at a Sudden Awakening

The debut of young British artist Maya Hewitt’s representative work

The profound influence of Western art history and the experience from exploring the East have resulted in Maya’s acute perception of cultures, as well as her diversified approach in art. In 2009 and 2014, she participated in artist-in-residence programs respectively in Tokyo Wonder Site, Japan, and Luzhu Village, Taiwan. Her works have entered the prestigious collection of "me Collector Room" in Berlin. In the work, Days in the Wilderness, Maya vividly depicts technological and futurist imagery in the wilderness on a giant canvas of two meters. Apart from indicating the anxious life status in the technological society, she also takes up an approach with exquisiteness of oriental art to depict people and objects with deep reflection on memory and experience. The painting leads the viewer out of the bustling labyrinth of reality abd into a dream-like discrete space with life journey of unremitting pursuit.

A Memory of Ages, the Emotions of the Sincerest

Wang Yuping’s Guozijian

As an important representative artist of the Chinese New Expressionism in the 1980s and 1990s Wang Yuping uses a sketching technique to record the secular life. His Painting Beijing series are popular among collectors, and Guozijian is one of the representative pieces. This diptych art piece extends the whole scene in two separate canvases, presenting the horizontal view of Guozijian street in early spring. Wang depicts Beijing as a city fused with the modern and the traditional by introducing the daily life elements into the whole view. He consistently paints with simple color combination in flattened brushstrokes, creating the striking and monumental moment that viewers could echo with. His works are frequently exhibited in important places like Venice Biennale, Chinese Oil Painting Exhibitions and also are collected by National Art Museum of China and Kaohsiung Mountain Arts Museum.

Apart from the above sectioned works, many other attractive paintings and sculptures from western and eastern starring artists are sure to bring more variety and vividness to the audience.

Depicting the World Vision in the Name of Pop

The creations by Keith Haring

American pop artist Keith Haring receives worldwide attention through his trademark visual language of bright and dark color blocks, and concise black lines. Fight Aids Worldwide was completed in 1990, the same year that Haring has passed away. He utilized his humorous style to remind everyone the significance of care and attention to AIDS. This work is published by the World Federation of United Nations Associations and additionally issued with certification.

Since 1984, Haring has gone beyond the art gallery system to open Pop shops in New York and Tokyo to sell his creations. Pop Shop III is a wonderful work from Pop shop series. By arranging the sharp contrary of warmth and cold, bright and dark colors in lines, Haring sends a humorous yet poignant message of criticism of the stagnant society.

Advocating the Subversive, Long Live the Peace!

Banksy’s Anti-war Protest

Wrong War is a rare spraypaint original work by the famous street art artist Banksy, once exhibited in the solo exhibition of Banksy named Wrong War in the Modern Contemporary Art Museum, Amsterdam in 2017. The homonymous artwork also conveys the view of rebellion against towards war. It highlights a pink bowknot tied on the military aircraft, so as to criticize the war in reality and express the wish on everlasting peace.

Wild Fantasy, Invincible Youthfulness

A Chinese Sub-culture Icon, No2good’s Mousy

No2Good is a well-established Taiwanese animation artist. His most representative series of cosplay mousy is highly sought-after in the market with wide exhibition records in Venice Biennale, Seoul, Shanghai and Hong Kong. The Super Mousy created in 2013 takes inspiration from the popular comics icon of Superman to demonstrate the bravery and spirit of the figure. Through the positive image of Mousy, the artist hopes to encourage people to break free from the habitual restraints and never give up to overcome the difficulties.

Heart Healer

Encountering ‘Nini’

Since 2012, artist Huang Benrei creates the "Bunny Nini" as her speaker to bring warmth and love to people through her art creation. In Dream Delivery, Nini is seating on the backside of carton box that could drive it to her dream destination.

With soft touch and warm colours, the artist attempts to encourage the viewers to pursuit their dreams and embrace any possible challenges in life.

Come to The Wonderland, We Hold Our Hands

Chang Chia-Ying’s Dream to Live a Recluse Life

Acting as an exemplary representative of the new century, Chang Chia-Ying opens a new chapter of the combination of wonderland and flat-aesthetics in Wizard of Oz — Tin Woodman. In a fairytale narrative mode, she tells the story of Tin Woodman striving to get his heart back. The traditional landscape view and the colourfulness painting style bring mysterious and dream-like feelings to the audience. All the bizarre and grotesque scenes are her personal interpretation of the diversified reality, inviting us to explore the wonderland within her work.

The Reappearance of an Innocent Mind in Childhood

Lo Chiao-Ling’s Healing Doll

With her pure and sincere depiction of art, Lo Chiao-Ling becomes an exceptional contemporary artist with works exhibited widely. The delightful images of children protagonists in her art can always speak their mind fearlessly. In Finger Puppets, an innocent young girl is displaying the colourful finger puppets on her hand and indulging in a self-directed play. By applying light layers of graffiti-like paints, she portrays the girls in an innocence and happy mood, to express her love and care to the world.

Wild Imagination, Determined Marching

Lai Chiu-Chen’s modern fairy tale

Born in 1970s, Lai Chiu-Chen creates his symbolic animation figures through his unique abstract painting style. In Cross-Located Tankman, he applies a thin spread of paints and repeats the layers into manifold. With a discreet burnish, the different layers hidden behind present themselves to us, enabling us to see the multi-layered paints and their infinite change and subtle texture. The artist thus reconstructs and integrates the separate units of the figure with his brushes in a geometric vocabulary. providing an extremely strong visual impact.

Wonderful and Fun, Faithful to Self

Ceet’s Festivity of Chicks

As the second generation graffiti artist, Ceet Fouad shares his life experience and thinking on culture through his unique imagery of chicken character. The work School Time depicts a shocked chicken reclining before the blackboard and looking at all the letters written with chalks at a loss. As an interpretation of the adolescent age, this work vividly arouses our memory back to the days at school, while brings humor and happiness to the viewers and speaks the sincere wish to stay happy and treasure the youth time.