Lot 1331: HUANG MING-CHE

HUANG MING-CHE
(B. 1948)
The Season of Cotton Flowers, Taipei
signed in Chinese; dated '1994' (lower left); inscribed and signed in Chinese; dated '1992-94' (on the reverse)
oil on canvas
180 x 121 cm. (70 7/8 x 47 5/8 in.)
Painted in 1992-1994

Galerie Pierre, Michell Hwang-1994 Faces of The Modern City, Taipei, Taiwan, 1994 (illustrated, plate no. 51, unpaged).

Galerie Pierre, Taichung, Taiwan
Acquired from the above by the present owner

Huang Ming-Che's early works have strong emphasis on symbolism and realism, where the narrative and composition are meticulously constructed. His paintings of the 1990s resonate the notion of Expressionism, Cubism and Surrealism, in which the techniques of abstraction and deconstruction are prominent in his various portraits of the women in the Far East.
Exemplary of this period, Huang's Cotton Tree Blossom in Taipei (Lot 1331) and Lady (Lot 1332) both depict a remarkable composition of the abstracted female body. These works show a layered entanglement of shapes, colors, forms and lines that create an intriguing and multifaceted image, filled with poetic and mystical elements, an expressive narration as well as a subtle yet ambiguous portrayal of women in Asian societies. Huang's sophisticated color composition uses a diverse palette of pastel hues in combination with bold reds, oranges, yellows and greens. The colors animate the flat abstraction and create a sense of depth. As every aspect of femininity is reduced to a repetitive uniformity of shapes and mask-like facial features and expressions, the viewer recalls Modigliani's female portraits with their distinctive almond-shaped eyes, pursed mouths, twisted noses, and elongated necks, as well as Paul Klee's cubist and collage-like deconstructions of fragile fantasy worlds. Prior to the 1990s abstract style, Huang has established himself in Taiwan as a prominent realism artist, yet his search for artistic practice did not stop there. Rare as it is for a realist artist to transform its painterly manner completely. in the 1990s, Huang did just that and ventured into the oppositie of realism, abstraction. As a result, these two paintings represent his successful artistic transformation in the arena of abstract figurative.