 | Huei-Mei Shih (centre) with PhD supervisor, Jelle Van Den Berg (left... Huei-Mei Shih (centre) with PhD supervisor, Jelle Van Den Berg (left) and FCA Gallery Director, Didier Balez (right) |  | Tiger, oil on canvas, 2006 Tiger, oil on canvas, 2006 |  | Dragon, oil on canvas, 2007 Dragon, oil on canvas, 2007 |  | The Wizard, oil on canvas, 2006 The Wizard, oil on canvas, 2006 |  | God of Warring, oil on canvas, 2006 God of Warring, oil on canvas, 2006 |  | Four Seasons Spring, photographs, 2008 Four Seasons Spring, photographs, 2008 |  | Four Seasons – Autumn, photographs, 2008 Four Seasons – Autumn, photographs, 2008 | \ | Four Seasons – Summer, photographs, 2008 Four Seasons – Summer, photographs, 2008 |  | Four Seasons – Winter, photographs, 2008 Four Seasons – Winter, photographs, 2008 |  | Flower #1: Daffodil, photographs, 2008 Flower #1: Daffodil, photographs, 2008 |  | Prince requests for Prosperity, photographs, 2008 Prince requests for Prosperity, photographs, 2008 |
World of Cochin
28 February – 14 March 2008
Artist: Huei-Mei Shih
PhD candidate, Faculty of Creative Arts
In her first solo exhibition at the University of Wollongong, PhD candidate Huei-Mei Shih showcases a traditional folk art of Taiwan. The delicate and fragile ceramic art form, called Cochin, has been used to decorate temples and luxury buildings in Taiwan for centuries.
Traditional Cochin craftsmen worked modestly throughout their lives to complete their exquisite works anonymously. In her exploration of these traditional ceramic artworks through painting and photographic imagery, Huei-Mei Shih pays tribute to their skill, imagination and storytelling legacy to Taiwanese culture.
The exhibition was officially opened by Professor Diana Wood Conroy at a reception on Thursday 28 February 2008 at 12.30pm.
About the artist:
Born in Taiwan, Huei-Mei Shih completed her Master of Arts/Master of Fine Arts double degree at, Fontbonne University, USA, in 1992. She has held solo exhibitions in the USA and has participated in several group exhibitions in Taiwan. Before joining the Faculty of Creative Arts at University of Wollongong, to undertake her PhD in Visual Arts, she was a researcher with the National Museum of History and lectured at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum and National Taiwan University of Arts.
Artist Statement:
Cochin ceramic is a traditional folk art of Taiwan. It is fragile and delicate with a high aesthetic value, which was used as architectural decorations for temples or luxurious houses in Taiwan for over 200 years. Cochin ceramics function as decoration and its symbols were closely bound with the people’s lives.
Most of the traditional craftsmen modestly cultivated and worked throughout their lives and completed many exquisite and delicate works anonymously.
Compared with the artists the craftsmen are a group of reticent workers, who interpret the historical stories (novels, legend, mythology) through their own imagination. With their consummate skill they facilitate a lively and vivid drama of performance to be played out continuously in the temple. No matter how time runs, the act stays in the temple like a freeze-frame and tells the stories ceaselessly. It leads us to pass through space and time in order to enter another fantasy world.
In my research, I have had the opportunity to document a part of old Cochin ceramics in Taiwanese temples. Due to a lack of recognition of its important heritage significance, most of the early made Cochin ceramics in Taiwan are disappearing. Therefore at this exhibition I intend to work through different media to express the beauty of old Cochin ceramics. The style of the traditional realistic technique is a salute to the traditional craftsmen. A new interpretation to explore the old Cochin ceramics is through a re-arrangement of photographic imagery.
I did not sign my work out of respect for the humble virtue of the craftsmen.
My intention is to make use of old Cochin ceramics in order to re-examine and to acknowledge my own Taiwanese culture.
FCA Gallery
Room 112, Building 25
Faculty of Creative Arts
University of Wollongong
Opening hours: 9am to 5pm Monday to Friday
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