Curatorial Team: Director LEE Yulin, Deputy Director TSAI Ming-Jiun, Staff TSENG Chao-Hsuan, and Staff Alexis Pui-Kwan KAM, Asia University Museum of Modern Art


Speaking of his father, the artist Tzu-Chi YEH always likes to stress the emotions and blood in diaspora amidst the grand tide of times he inherited from his father. In his own journey of life, out of his studies and the pursuit of an ideal artistic haven, Yeh experienced a life of displacement, just like his father had. From Yuli to Hualien, and then to Taipei, he stepped onto foreign soil at the age of thirty with his fiancée, Ms. Kin-Tsuei CHANG, to study and start a family in New York. At 49, he returned to his hometown in Hualien. In this constant process of relocation, vision pursuing, and self-realization, the artist recorded different time and space, as well as memories and realities, across various stages in life via his portrayal of “landscape indoors,” “still life outdoors,” and, most importantly, “family.”


For Tzu-Chi YEH, who has been through displacement for half of his life, painting serves as both a diary of life and a resolute testament to his artistic pursuit. A reverse chronological layout is employed in the exhibition “The Song of Time.” Through the painting oeuvre akin to a personal representation, visitors are invited to recall memories of their own or their families’ life experiences, while allowing them to hear the sounds of a grand era.


This exhibition explores the meaning of the “Song” in its title via two different dimensions beyond time. First, through the religious context of the Song of Songs, we envisage the relationship between Yeh’s artistic practice and his life journey as that between God and His people. Called by art, Yeh embarked on a spiritual journey for life, fulfilling his mission as an artist in his practice of art through numerous relocations and trials. Meanwhile, extending from the idea of the Song of Songs being called the “Song of Songs,” the artist’s works are likened to “Songs.” Through the five galleries, i.e., “The Song of Homecoming,” “The Song of Wandering,” “The Song of Monologue,” “The Song of Dialogue,” and “The Song of Fulfillment,” his works are envisioned as songs recording family, life, nature, and existence, filled with emotions.



As far as Tzu-Chi Yeh is concerned, art creation is a process of in-depth exchange with time, life, and emotion. It is meticulous care about life as much as a profound reflection on his inner self. His realistic paintings are not merely visual representations but also in-depth dialogues with himself and the world around. Like sonatas of sense and sensibility interlaced in harmony, the works evoke heartfelt resonance across time and space in viewers. At “The Song of Time,” tracing the works in different stages of Yeh’s life journey, you are cordially to travel back in time to experience the artist’s self-healing via art practice and to explore with us the deeper meaning of life.