Eric J. Chiang 江俊雄
A Grand Whim of Running Melody
The 10th Symphony Beethoven wrote on my heart , my own music manuscripts & oil on canvas, 12" x 16"
2020 Energy Flow in Connecticut Rivers
Taiwanese-American artist Eric Chiang lives and works in Connecticut. A man bewitched by his deep inclinations to art, Eric had been awakened from mundanity to self-awareness in which he has sought to recognize music and visual shape and color, which led to his own mountain and wave magnanimity. Using seemingly textured paint, Eric mixes abstraction and realism to achieve a point of its own elegance. He conceals rustic blue-black continuing mountains with ribs in coarse strokes, and his waves spring up to tower in the mist and white wind, as in Blue Matterhorn . The dregs of life come against the infinite music, and then cascade down to meet the river. Clutching nothing material, their business seems to be with the void. Eric Chiang's life has expanded our horizons by delineating times where the painted image is distant from than the monetary world. The combination of his sources advance with a proud grace as if rejecting mere representation. The black and white paint is transformed from dripping and splashed spots on the canvas by way of the imagination, They seem to stroke the invisible, while without petition they also address the infinite and the universe.
This year, he created a new series called The Year 2020 , taking the as pandemic subject; in it, the barbed wire hoop assaults the hospital bed Somehow in angry darkness a sort of gigantic coronavirus earth is loosed upon the solar system and an insignificant space-walking astronaut.
To glance at Eric's earlier realistic practice, it encapsulates the enfolding light of Christ while denying the significance of the destruction of worldly things. Gazing upon those pieces, we see he has left a violin or cello or saxophone abandoned in the air or flowing water or outer space and the whole composition is devoid of humans. We have to congratulate him for seeing though the pretense. Eric crystallized his thought in vision.
---- Luchia Meihua Lee, curator
Blue Matterhorn , Oil on canvas, 72" x 48", 2020
Water Lyrics & Music , Oil on Linen, 24" x 30", 2016
Memory of Connecticut shoreline , oil on canvas, 12" x 12", 2020
Blue Tahoe , Oil on canvas, 48" x 72", 2020
2020 solicitude
In his latest series, Eric kept his strokes in the background while carefully omitting all pleasant spiritual beauty. The dark area pertains to flesh hiding behind its own dazzling instrumental light. The pandemic brings us back to solidarity and an irritable, restless and dark silent era. On a black background but visible from a considerable distance. we want to stay hidden from the violent world, and build disguise in a fresh nature and cosmos.
The Year 2020, No.1. oil & acrylic on canvas, 30" x 60"
The Year 2020, No.2, oil on canvas, 40" x 30"
To glance at Eric Chiang's studio. Don't forget to turn on your speakers.
https://youtu.be/S-jSHVd0L78
Eric is a full time professional artist; his artwork has been exhibited in National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts in Taipei , Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Queens Museum in New York, New Britain Museum of American Arts, Mattatuck Museum, Westport Arts Center (Now MoCA Westport), Silvermine Guild Gallery, Carriage Barn Arts Center, Bruce Kershner Gallery, Schelfhaudt Gallery in Connecticut, and many other venues and communities.
In September 2016, Eric Chiang was given a Citation from the New York State Assembly for his outstanding artwork about humanity.
Eric grew up in Taiwan where he received art training from regular school programs. Aspiring to become an artist, he spent most of his youth absorbing history and techniques of art creation and classical music composition from all sources he could find.
Prompted by the economic situation in Taiwan at that time, his life took a big detour. After obtaining degrees from National Taiwan University and New York University, he started a long and successful IT management career on Wall Street. Nevertheless, his desire to create art grew stronger than ever. He committed to painting daily despite his extremely demanding corporate responsibilities. Decades later, Eric became a full-time artist.
In addition to creating art that explores the meaning of existence, showing his empathy for pan-human desperation, love, connections, and hope, he is very active in leading organizations connecting individual artists to each other, as well as artists to the public.
Interview video : Westport Library with Eric C. Chiang (Artists in Residency)
https://youtu.be/XqFKV8RxcAo
(left) Civilizations & Connectedness I, [Series:"Are we born connected?"], Acrylic on canvas, 60" x 48", 2012
(mid) Blue Rhapsody of Swan Lake, Oil on Canvas, 36" x 36", 2014
(right) Song of Constellations, [Series: "Are we born connected?"], Acrylic on canvas, 60" x 48", 2012
Landscripts VIII, IX, & X , oil on (3) canvases, 60"Hx144"W
The below link is a performance ("Shore, Island, and Chelonia") on December 22, 2018 at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, where Yuan-Chen Li's music was premiered -- she played the piano. Five of Eric's 12 paintings in the " Land Scripts" series were on the stage, augmented with a marine video and plastics gathered in a fish net.
Music composed by Yuan-Chen Li
Paintings, installation & audience interaction design by Eric C Chiang;
Clarinetist Yi-Wen Chen
https://youtu.be/KA9Aug7EQ6E
More information:
http://ericchiangart.com/index.html
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100004603338979
Instergram
https://www.instagram.com/eric.chiang.art/
Upcoming Exhibition
Silvermine Guild Artists Exhibition
Jul 18 - Aug 20, 2020
1037 Silvermine Road, New Canaan, CT
Current Exhibition
Do or Die (Beethoven's 250th Birthday )
Feb 27 - TBD
Beechwood Arts @ Westport Library
www.beechwoodarts.org/Do_Or_Die_14.html
" Small is the new big ",
Apr 26 - Jun 26, 2020
at the Rene Soto Gallery
1 Wall Street, Norwalk, CT