A 29-year-old Taiwanese illustrator would say the best art form to encapsulate the varied aspects of Taiwan is an aesthetic female figure that was created through his paint strokes.
From Penghu’s Tianhou Temple, a Matsu temple built in 1604, to corrugated metal shacks alongside roads, from betel nut beauties to bus drivers, a young illustrator going by the pseudonym Chih Yu (蚩尤) brings the nation’s cultural characteristics, religions, architecture and ecology to life in the form of illustrated female characters.
On the cover of We Stay, We Live, a compilation of about 20 hand-drawn works by Chih, a glamorous woman curls her slender body in a position that mimics the contours of Taiwan.
Photo provided courtesy of Chih Yu
She is embellished from head to toe with Taiwanese features, such as azaleas from Taipei, the Hakka patterns from Miaoli County and the giant Buddha sculpture on Bagua Mountain in Changhua County.
Chih said he put a map of Taiwan underneath the paper he drew on to better adjust the body posture of the female character to represent Taiwan.
The scruffy corrugated metal shacks common throughout Taiwan also come to life through the tip of Chih’s paintbrushes, being transformed into a youthful woman with corrugated steel sheets winding softly around her silken body.
Photo: Wang Yi-sung, Taipei Times
“Such a representation hints at the way modern people who live in an urban jungle are smothered by concrete and steel, while becoming habituated to it,” Chih said.
In another illustration titled the Betel Nut Beauties, Chih presents a lighter side of Taiwan. A motorcyclist in the form of a pig — an animal that often represents promiscuous men in Taiwanese culture — is depicted falling off his -motorbike after trying to peep at a betel nut beauty while driving, knocking over the betel nut stand and launching the betel nut beauty into the sky.
The scene was inspired by one of Chih’s personal experiences, he said, in which he crashed his motorcycle because he was staring at a betel nut beauty while driving.
Photo provided courtesy of Chih Yu
We Stay, We Live is meant to convey the way he see the country, Chih said.
“However, what truly matters is not the way I perceive her [Taiwan], but if you [the public] really love her [Taiwan].”
Translated by Stacy Hsu, Staff Writer
Twenty-four Republican members of the US House of Representatives yesterday introduced a concurrent resolution calling on the US government to abolish the “one China” policy and restore formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan. Led by US representatives Tom Tiffany and Scott Perry, the resolution calls for not only re-establishing formal relations, but also urges the US Trade Representative to negotiate a free-trade agreement (FTA) with Taiwan and for US officials to advocate for Taiwan’s full membership in the UN and other international organizations. In a news release announcing the resolution, Tiffany, who represents a Wisconsin district, called the “one China” policy “outdated, counterproductive
Actress Barbie Hsu (徐熙媛) has “returned home” to Taiwan, and there are no plans to hold a funeral for the TV star who died in Japan from influenza- induced pneumonia, her family said in a statement Wednesday night. The statement was released after local media outlets reported that Barbie Hsu’s ashes were brought back Taiwan on board a private jet, which arrived at Taipei Songshan Airport around 3 p.m. on Wednesday. To the reporters waiting at the airport, the statement issued by the family read “[we] appreciate friends working in the media for waiting in the cold weather.” “She has safely returned home.
ON PAROLE: The 73-year-old suspect has a criminal record of rape committed when he was serving in the military, as well as robbery and theft, police said The Kaohsiung District Court yesterday approved the detention of a 73-year-old man for allegedly murdering three women. The suspect, surnamed Chang (張), was arrested on Wednesday evening in connection with the death of a 71-year-old woman surnamed Chao (趙). The Kaohsiung City Police Department yesterday also unveiled the identities of two other possible victims in the serial killing case, a 75-year-old woman surnamed Huang (黃), the suspect’s sister-in-law, and a 75-year-old woman surnamed Chang (張), who is not related to the suspect. The case came to light when Chao disappeared after taking the suspect back to his residence on Sunday. Police, upon reviewing CCTV
Johanne Liou (劉喬安), a Taiwanese woman who shot to unwanted fame during the Sunflower movement protests in 2014, was arrested in Boston last month amid US President Donald Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigrants, the Criminal Investigation Bureau (CIB) said yesterday. The arrest of Liou was first made public on the official Web site of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on Tuesday. ICE said Liou was apprehended for overstaying her visa. The Boston Field Office’s Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) had arrested Liou, a “fugitive, criminal alien wanted for embezzlement, fraud and drug crimes in Taiwan,” ICE said. Liou was taken into custody
RSS