Chia-Heng Hsieh

On Saturday 11th November 2017 I had the opportunity to meet Chia-Heng Hsieh, a Taiwanese artist based in Taipei, Taiwan. 

He works only in clay to produce his finely detailed sculpture. His work is a hybrid fusion of influence between the culture of Spain and Taiwan. This is because he used to live and study ceramics in Spain until moving back to Taiwan to continue his ceramics career. He mentioned that he was influenced by the brightly coloured ceramics in Spain at the time when he was studying there.

It is very difficult to see these ceramic sculptures as being made from clay and if he did not tell me this I would not have known. He has managed to transform the material of most of his sculptures into having a metal like quality, in some cases, it even looks like some kind of stone or marble. 

When looking at the shape of these forms I got the impression that he has been influenced by everyday objects. This is clearly seen in the motorbike piece and the red handbag. The greenish looking sculpture appears to refer to the vessel through a bold geometric form. The sculpture underneath looks like a handbag with a lizard looking creature for the handle but at the same time it seems to shift to something geometric or architectural looking.

There is no denying that his ceramic sculpture is precisely constructed with an attention to detail. For example, the motorbike and red handbag sculpture look a lot like the real thing. On the other hand, there also seems to be a surreal-like quality as they appear to refer to a recognizable object yet at the same time the sculptures can provoke a different way of viewing as the sizes and colour are different to the real objects. 

For further information about Chia-Heng Hsieh feel free to see http://www.aic-iac.org/member/chia-heng-hsieh/