Taipei Fine Arts Museum

Period: 10/5 - 12/15

As the TFAM’s new collection vault is about to be inaugurated, this exhibition focuses specifically on female artists’ works in our collection, aiming to shine a light on a creative dimension of contemporary art that is both tender and resilient. It seeks to provide a new perspective from which audiences can understand and interpret the collection. Moreover, this exhibition foregrounds that our new collection vault not only implies the expansion of physical space but also commits to unwavering exploration of the inner conditions of contemporary art.

As a concept of human geography, “enclave” refers to a territory entirely surrounded by the territory of one country but not under its jurisdiction. Derived from Latin, enclave comprises the prefix “en” (in, within something) and “clave”(key), literally translated as “a locked space.” This exhibition invokes the metaphor of “enclave” to represent a creator's inner world, indicating a safe haven for consciousness, a space which can be shielded autonomously, so that the creator can maintain inner peace and steadfastness in the face of external interventions or emotional fluctuations. The exhibition mirrors the rich inner worlds and diverse life experiences expressed in women's art, extending the common autobiographical narrative in literature to convey the context and life concerns of artists across different stages of their lives.

Period: 2024/10/12 - 2025/2/2

Taiwan’s various political and societal developments over the last century have caused complex swings in the status and naming of Eastern gouache painting, as well as impacted its development. Taiwan experienced the spread of Japanese painting techniques during the colonial period, and then the private apprenticeship system in art education after the conclusion of World War II. Later, when universities established courses in gouache painting, a new wave of interest in learning and creating this art form arose. This exhibition is based on the Eastern and Western characteristics of gouache painting in terms of materials used and subject matter pursued, and is organized around the chronology of Taiwan’s government-run art exhibitions and related developments in its educational system. In this way, the exhibition strives to present features of the history, contradictions, and establishment of gouache painting in Taiwan. From the exhibition’s mapping of the development of Taiwanese gouache painting with artists and their works, it can be seen that original sources have been reinterpreted based on new external stimuli, and the manner of creation has alternated between expressive possibilities found in Eastern and Western painting.