Salute to A Palm Tree
Solo exhibition of Pei-Chi Kuo
Curated by Venus Lau
October 2022
@18th Street Arts Center, Los Angeles, USA
Kuo’s series of work during her residency at the 18th Street Arts Center intertwines the soft and warm memories of a family trip in her childhood to the masculinity of territorial identities and global mobilities. Her works are inspired by the cultural diversities and histories of the West Coast, bringing her to further investigate the symbols of palm trees, beyond the impressions of the ever-smiling sun and beaches seen in clichés of vacation.
Kuo invites us to her memories, when her father, who served as a navy for the Taiwanese governmenrt years ago, brought the whole family to California for a military mission. Their personal memories, though sweet and innocent, were entangled with the grand stage of power relations and identity politics. With the passage of time, the artist has another careful look, and responds to these spaces and boundaries through a documentation of moving images, with emotional and performative touches.
The series of work begins with her repeated encounter with the American flags and palm trees, with her refreshing lens to this land. Her series of work is centered with her multiple layers of critical reflections towards these symbols.
The choices of found materials, mediums and ways of expressions provoke us to rethink the everyday perceptions and narrations that are silently embedded in the culture. Some of these traces are subtle, like the hand-stitching by the artist is casting a contrast to the massive and mechanical production of the flags as iconic goods.
The exhibition "Salute to A Palm Tree" had a reprise in Taiwan 2023, curated and presented by the Dynasty Gallery based in Taipei.
About The Artist:
Pei-Chi Kuo is a graduate from the master’s degree in New Media Art at the Taipei National University of the Arts. Her work experiments with the possibilities of sound art. In 2012, she began developing her “Sound Portrait” series, which combines music, sound, and visual art. She has a talent for taking the interpersonal relations of politics, power, and contradictions, and turning that into artwork. Her creations address Taiwan and the International—whether it is the cross-strait issues or the relationships that exist within international politics—both reflect contradictions and conflicts of Taiwanese self-consciousness.
Pei-Chi Kuo is a full-time artist now. In 2017, she went to Thailand for the Art No Wall project exchange show, and her art work to be collected at Thailand Khon Kaen University Museum. In 2019, she was invited to participate in the Small Singapore Show 2.1 exhibit in Singapore.