Serendipity

Artist list

Weihsuan Chang, Yunghuei Chao, Yuchun Chen, Minling Hsieh, Wenhsien Hsu, Janny Yokota Huang, Tzuling Lee, Philip Sajet, Terhi Tolvanen, Anchi Wang, Iting Wang, Caixuan Wu, Shulin Wu

Sérendipité / Serendipity, a collective travelling show, was born when Shu-Lin Wu challenged 12 European and Taiwanese artists to include rough semi-precious stones into their work. She wished to share her passion for the material and to stimulate a new corpus of pieces. The initiative sparkled an unexpected enthusiasm and resulted in very promising contributions.

Philip Sajet, a France based Dutch jeweler, has been using stones for more than 20 years. His highly recognizable work balances materials that are smooth and raw, rough and soft, old and contemporary. He also quite exceptionally handles color. Finnish Terhi Tolvanen, who also works in France, mixes organic and engineered materials to question our relationship with nature through surprising and atypical designs.

Taiwanese artists – several of them had previously been invited by Noel Guyomarc’h to Montreal – differ from Sajet and Tolvanen as minerals do not usually belong to their artistic vocabulary. Integrating the stones was, therefore, a challenge. Janny Huang Yokota instinctively organizes her found sanctum to provide a harbor for the gem. Anchin Wang’s baroque-style shapes in oxidized silver are specifically designed to receive it. Both Caixuan Wu and Yunghuei Chao subtly included luminous stones, such as crystals and aquamarines, in the pieces of their previous collections. The former transforms acrylic into smooth moving pieces that question our perception of this solid material. Adding stones allowed her to reflect on their constant natural growth within artificial environments. The later uses interlocking and overlapping elements to suggest how the environment is always transforming. Iting Wang and Weihsuan Chang both convey sensory experiences of strolling in nature through very different-looking pieces. Carissa Wenhsien Hsu takes up to what stones formerly projected to bring back child’s memories of discovering the world, while Tzuling Lee’s approach tends to question the affective or monetary value we put in collecting gems. Minling Hsieh’s minimalist creations, made of gold and crystals, play with light to open up new spaces, while Yuchun Chen uses the desert varnish from Mongolian Gobi Desert. The varnish, found on the rocks like a double layer, allows her to express the idea of duality, an essential concept to her work and an extended metaphor in his rings creations.

Shu-Lin Wu will also present some pieces from her previous series Les 4 Saisons.

Opening

Thursday, 6th of September, 5 pm to 8 pm.