A Sun-Wu

A Sun-Wu was born in Taiwan in 1942. In 1968 he completed the Fine Arts programme at the National Taiwan University, and from 1971 to 1973, he obtained an MA in Plastic Arts from San Fernando Academy in Madrid, Spain. A wild spirit, he travelled through different countries, where he spent long stays, though he has lived between Paris and Taiwan since the early 1990s. His work, particularly mixed-technique paintings and sculptures, owes its expressive, and somewhat disturbing, vitality to the use of vibrant colours and fragmented geometric forms, with an occasional humorous touch. A Sun-Wu’s oeuvre has felt the influence of primitive art — African tribal masks, for instance —, which locates it at the border between abstraction and representation, human and beast, definite shapes and symbols. A Sun-Wu is one of the most important and internationally renowned Taiwanese artists today. After his first solo exhibition in 1968, he was present at the 1969, 1971 and 1973 São Paulo Biennales. In 1988, he was appointed Knight of the French Order of Arts and Letters, a distinction that coincided with his exhibition at the Trianon, in Parc de Bagatelle, Paris. He has had solo and group exhibitions throughout the world, as well as participated in several outdoor sculpture symposia. In addition to Sem Título [Untitled], created in 2001 for the 6^th Santo Tirso International Symposium of Contemporary Sculpture, it is worth mentioning his participation as curator and artist in Taiwan’s Taoyunan sculpture garden. Some of his most recent exhibitions include “Danse de la jungle”, at Maison des Arts, Paris (2014), and the sculpture exhibition staged at Taipei’s Yangmingshan National Park, Taiwan (2015).