SU Wong-shen, born in Chiayi, Taiwan in 1956, graduated from the Department of Fine Arts at Chinese Culture University in 1979. Between 1983 and 1987, he worked at Tamsui Junior High School. His works have been exhibited in Taiwan, China, France, the United States, South Korea, Belgium, and Japan. His works are collected by Taipei Fine Arts Museum, National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts, and Long Museum in Shanghai.
SU Wong-shen's artistic creation initially focused on abstraction, hard-edge, and minimal styles, also involving expressionism. Later, he integrated art with life and reality, incorporating close observation of social and cultural aspects, allowing us to perceive the changes in society. Su Wangshen's works depict tranquil and subtle scenes, with finely textured layers of colors, exuding a deep sense of nostalgia and attachment to his homeland. The perspective in his paintings often overlooks or slants towards the ground from above, allowing viewers to see only the ""land"" beneath, metaphorically and cleverly making ordinary rural landscapes and commonplace objects the subjects of our current gaze.
His compositions are filled with a childlike innocence, yet they conceal clever and metaphorical intentions. The recurring images of cats and dogs in his works initially stemmed from the frequent encounters with stray cats and dogs fighting in the streets of Tamsui where he once lived. The characteristic of these animals, fighting in groups, inspired him to symbolize crowds and human nature with cats and dogs. After 1998, Su Wangshen provided various social stages for the animals in his paintings, using animals to symbolize humans, anthropomorphizing their behaviors to reflect the various social chaos caused by political power in Taiwan. The whimsical poses and enigmatic scenes in his works are thought-provoking, developing his own unique style.
SU Wong-shen 蘇旺伸