A review on Huang Ming-che’s mental voyage of art creation from the very beginning to today discloses a heart of naivety that never gets self-contented and is constantly seeking self-transcendence, as a result of which the artist is able to keep his works fresh and new. His early works feature rich symbolism, strict realism, completeness of pictorial content and structure, but since the 1990s the artist has entered a stage of bold expressionism and thorough self-deconstruction. Although during all his artistic phases Huang’s focus lies firmly on various aspects of humanity, works of the earlier period pay more attention to human sensations, while those of the latter phases tend to depict isolated individuals or portray metropolitan women in the eastern districts from a mocking or cynical perspective.
    From 1993 on, Huang’s work entered an unprecedented period of disintegration and deconstruction, his pieces now showing

obscure human bodies melting into the tangling background as he composes a farewell tune that says Goodbye to Gustav Klimt, Francis Bacon, Amadeo Modigliani and Willem de Kooning, and the idiosyncratic Good morning, Mr. Klee, filled with oriental mystique and poesy. Evidently, the goal of this “self-destructive” style is to seek a new artistic vocabulary and shape new structures. On huge-sized canvases, he completely deconstructs and disintegrates his former methods of expression and relieves the ensuing entanglement, obsession, anxiety and gloom through relatively rational patterns that form a language of their own. This “Huang Ming-che” Idiom is imbued with a poetic flavor that is very reminiscent of Paul Klee.
    In recent years, Huang Ming-che has begun to feel that painting with its basic flat-surface quality can no longer satisfy his need for artistic expression. He has thus started to explore a more dimensional art that looks like a sublimated version of expanding protoplasm. This kind of dimensional formative art is quite different from sculpture, because Huang’s works are essentially two-dimensional visual works that have yet taken on a certain extension in three-dimensional space. They also differ from sculpture in that they are suspended in the air instead of rooted in the ground. In addition, his formative art pieces of stainless steel are covered with a single bright color or painted with pictures—all a natural result of the logic evolution of Huang’s painting.

Self Portrait 9 (White Days)
自畫像9（白色的日子）
mixed media, 180×60 cm, 1983

A Work from 1985 作品1985, mixed media,
250×60×10 cm, 1985

Persistence and Continuity, the title of the exhibition, reflects that for the artist, there are no formal or conceptual barriers between two-dimensional and three-dimensional forms of art.
    Huang’s works convey the confusion and bitterness of his inner world, a result of his “contradictory mentality.” On the one hand, he is a modest and gentle artist not involved in worldly affairs; on the other hand, he shows such a confidence and such a meticulous attitude in his creative work. His painstaking attention to detail goes so far that sometimes a piece we have already been shown as a finished work before an exhibition will look completely different in the show because of the artist’s incessant revisions. And after the exhibition, if he finds anything not right with his work, Huang will never hesitate to break it up and rebuild it until he is really satisfied with it. This he rarely achieves, however, which means that he keeps revising and producing new shapes and forms. For Huang Ming-che, contrast and contradiction are the driving forces behind his entire oeuvre as well as the essence of his art. A look at his recent works of formative art reveals shapes similar to soft protoplasm combined with sharp and aggressive structures, which could be interpreted as a representation of the opposing forces of masculinity and femininity. Then again,....

Courtesy of Huang Ming-che 黃銘哲.