The first exhibition of 2026 in the Taichung City Artists Relay Exhibition, “Form, Heartscape—Lai Jui-Chen Oil Painting Exhibition,” will open on March 27 at the Taichung City Huludun Cultural Center. Using acrylics as her primary medium and incorporating techniques such as imprinting, collage, dripping, and scraping, artist Lai Jui-Chen creates richly textured surfaces to depict memories of life and emotional landscapes, leading viewers into a spiritual artistic journey shaped by the artist’s dialogue with life.
The Taichung City Huludun Cultural Center stated that Lai Jui-Chen was born in Hualien, where the green mountains, clear waters, and simple life of a farming family became the earliest nourishment for her artistic sensibility. During junior high school, she repeatedly copied tiger paintings by Lin Yu-shan, a master of Taiwanese gouache painting, laying a solid foundation for her painting skills. After nearly thirty years devoted to education, she retired and took up the brush once again, embarking on a creative journey of self dialogue. In this exhibition, Lai Jui-Chen 's works, including “Dawn” and “Impression of Nan’ao”, feature flowing layers of color and striking contrasts of light and shadow, revealing both the rhythms of nature and the emotional transformation of the artist’s life experiences.
Lai Jui-Chen recalled that although her father grew up in poverty, he taught himself painting and music, and even handcrafted an erhu from a coconut shell, whose melodious sound accompanied the family as they grew up. She said, “This inspiration that life itself is art is the strongest foundation of my creative work”. This inspiration also profoundly shaped her later artistic path. One of the most moving works in the exhibition, “A Love That Endures”, carries the artist’s profound longing for her father and two younger brothers, who passed away one after another. With a majestic mountain and flowing water symbolizing the long river of life, the painting places endless remembrance within a grand landscape, allowing viewers to feel an emotional bond that transcends life and death.
Another work, “Grace in Bloom”, is drawn from the artist’s memories of her hometown, Hualien. She transforms the blooming cotton rose hibiscus along the streets into rhythms of light and shadow on the canvas. Through layered colors and floral imagery, the work evokes a quiet awakening of life. Meanwhile, “When the Moon Is Full” interweaves blue gray and orange red tones to create a night scene that is both warm and profound. It symbolizes the light of the full moon casting golden and silvery brilliance, outlining beautiful childhood memories of family reunion while also symbolizing the fullness of life and hope. “Form, Heartscape” runs through April 26. Through the colors and interplay of light and shadow on the canvases, viewers can experience the warmth of art in the flow of time and the stories of life, and discover emotional echoes of their own.