Lot 269: YEH CHU-SHENG (YE ZHUSHENG)

YEH CHU-SHENG (YE ZHUSHENG) B. 1946 ECOSYSTEM 4 signed in English and dated 2008 (reverse) oil on canvas 130 by 194 cm.; 51 1/8 by 76 3/8 in.

Yeh Chu-Sheng's Exhibition Tour, Leisure Art Center, 2008
River Elegy-Yeh Chu-Sheng's Exhibition Tour, National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, 2009

River Elegy-Yeh Chu-Sheng's Exhibition Tour, National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, Tai Chung, Taiwan, 21 November - 27 December, 2009, illustrated in color

In the realm of Chinese Art, few artists' expression and execution can surpass Yeh Chu-Sheng. His passion and creativity cohesively merges textures and colours, allowing his audiences to not only focus on his themes, but also absorb his irresistible artistic expression.

Ecosystem 4 highlights the central idea of Yeh Chu-Sheng's art creation. Starting from his earlier works, such as Order-Disorder executed in 1986 (Sale of 20th Century Chinese Art, Sotheby's, Hong Kong, 6 April 2009, Lot. 564), Yeh Chu-Sheng thrives to incite people's awareness on environmental sustainability with his work and draws attention to the human destruction of Nature. Therefore, environment, ecology, or ecosystems has been the chief subject of all of Yeh Chu-Sheng's works. He also expanded into his Seed Series in the 90's, Seed + 18/F executed in 2006 (Sale of 20th Century Chinese Art, Sotheby's, Hong Kong, 6 April 2009, Lot. 562), or Ocean-Life No. 2 executed in 1998, (Sale of 20th Century Chinese Art, Sotheby's, Hong Kong, 6 October 2009, Lot. 574), are voices of arts conveying the idea of ecology, miserably magnificent yet nurturing unlimited opportunities of life.

After holding a large-scale solo exhibition in the National Art Museum of China, Beijing and Shanghai Art Museum in 2009, Yeh Chu-Sheng held another Environment Series, 88 River Elegy, exhibited at the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, inspired by a certain ecological catastrophe in Taiwan. From this series, Sotheby's, Hong Kong, is delighted to present its representative work - Ecosystem 4 (2008). The picture depicts pieces of floating wood, washed away from the mountains by a landslide, in a non-figurative way, struggling with the tides of the ocean. Yeh expresses his work in a carefree, unrestrained way and energizes biological geometric shapes with boundless vitality. While carrying across the message of the destruction of nature, Yeh injects playful and poetic elements into his paintings, cumulating in this exceptionally excellent work.