Memories could be rotten, as well as modern.

In the innocent elementary school year, besides the treasure in the pencil box and the penumbral relationship between boys and girls, the most special memory is about the desk and chair. Girls treating them with good care, always find boys on the next seat harm them without mercy. Nowadays when seeing the paint-flaked chairs and desks scratched roughly with children’s words, we are stricken that many vicissitudinary years has past away. The past, the chair and desk of old days, present the realistic life with a postmodern way. Silent but without sorrow, it still maintains the warm of innocence. Although the cram schools of then and the after-school coaching of now both limit the functions of desks and chairs, they still cannot control the thoughts like floating clouds and the hearts flying with swings in the classroom. More than that the one-time popular comic book Si-lang and Zhen-ping hidden in the drawers are now replaced by various Japanese comic books and video games. Different generations share similar childhood. The playmates of young had separated for their independent life, but the desks and chairs are like footprints on the sown. Although having gone blurry, they still hold the touching stories and irreplaceable memories.

The vast scale and expression of time switching of the huge bridge “Pioneering Hardship”, make artist A-liang’s pottery sculpture well-known in the international art world. The western modern art history called his realism style as “Trompe l’oeil”. “Tree Trunk Tea Pot” and “Tofu” that followed are even more admirable. This year he has devoted to the creation “Memories of Elementary School” which with plain desks and chairs, we are taken into the travel of time and relive the childhood. Going beyond material realism, installation, surrealism, A-liang applies the new spirit of modern sculpture to clay pottery art.

No matter for the winkles of tress, sleeping woods, iron nails, or tofu, A-liang always represents the extreme challenge to the limit of visual art. The soft and smooth tofu also reflects the memory of childhood: after the school rush to take a bow to the door when hearing the voice of tofu street vendor. The vender carefully lifted the cotton cloth, cut a cube of hot tofu, served with little say sauce. The irresistible smell of soybean is the cherished memory soft like cloud, echoing in the dept of heart. A-liang has turned Miaoli clay, which is as hard as stone, into soft smooth tofu and the old plank that holds the tofu. The scene of soft white tofu on the plank of deep lines and cracks brings back our vivid memories of old days, exhibited with delicate modern art, represented lightly, but strongly strike our hearts.

A-liang uses clay pottery to mimic the textures of wood skin, bridges, tofu, plank, desk and chairs, as well as tree trunks and branches.Clay pottery is the material that the artist uses to mimic the textures of wood skin, bridges, tofu plank, desks, chairs as well as tree trunks and branches. He not only shows an excellence in realism skills, but the kiln firing techniques or high temperature tell of his insistence and passion for art. The style is not formed by chance. The delicacy of tea pot and the lifelike touch of tree trunks have perfectly completed A-liang’s unique creativity of a tree tea pot. His tree tea pots appear to have concrete functions of tree pots. However, although A-liang’s tree pots own the concrete shape with practical function, they are in fact abstract sculptures with the expressions of tea pots. He draws his inspirations from daily life, and adds in realism and essences into his creation that surprises and amazes us!?

A-liang’s works of memory series bring the viewers the same touching feelings and the recalling of memories. Childhood may not stop in the stilled memories, but it rests upon A-ling’s “School Desks and Chairs”, anchors in the “Tree Trunk Tea Pots” and “Tofu”, and is full of exclamation marks of A-liang’s style.