YIM Mau-Kun Oil Painting from Life – Solo Exhibition A Decade of Gathering Light and Shadow

Opening｜Saturday, March 7, 2026, 15:00
Exhibition Dates｜March 7 – April 7, 2026
Artist Talk｜Saturday, March 28, 2026, 15:00

Long devoted to landscape and portrait painting as the core of his practice, Yim Mau-Kun’s work goes beyond the depiction of specific sites or scenes. His painting is an ongoing act of seeing that unfolds through movement and presence. Reviewing his artistic trajectory, from 1990 to 2015 his exhibited works encompass numerous locations across Taiwan—including Taichung, Keelung Islet, Kaohsiung, Nantou, Yilan, Longtan in Taoyuan, and the back hills of Xindian—as well as sites in Japan such as Nagaokakyō, Kyoto, Nara, Osaka, the Kōya River, and Fukuyama Botanical Garden. Though these places span diverse cultural and natural conditions, they are not presented as travel records or regional comparisons. Rather, they are treated as different fields in which the artist repeatedly enters the same creative state. Taking this as its point of departure, the exhibition brings together landscapes from multiple regions to reveal how Yim establishes a distinctive and sustained mode of looking through movement, pause, and the act of painting.

For Yim Mau-Kun, painting while traveling is not about capturing spectacular views or iconic landmarks; it is closer to a form of “fieldwork.” He insists on painting directly from life, placing his body within the landscape and observing light, air, structure, and the flow of time on site. Whether lingering along riverbanks in Japan to contemplate subtle shifts of light and shadow, or pausing to paint amid Taiwan’s farmlands, botanical gardens, and urban fringes, his paintings emerge in the present moment and maintain a direct, intimate relationship with their surroundings.

Sunset at Lanyu centers on boats and coastline bathed in evening light. The slightly imagined forms and gentle illumination create a tranquil atmosphere suspended between reality and perception. In portraiture, Yim Mau-Kun’s style inherits the rigorous and refined realism of the Russian academic tradition, demonstrating a solid and mature command of form. His use of restrained, elegant color imbues his figures with a quiet, tender, and warm temperament—clearly defined yet never reduced to mere outward likeness.

Notably, many of these portraits depict individuals from diverse cultural and ethnic backgrounds—some exchange students visiting Taiwan, others people encountered during the artist’s travels. Regardless of differences in skin color or cultural origin, Yim approaches each subject with the same distance of observation and creative attitude, allowing the figures to embody a cultural presence that transcends geography. Miao Girl from Southeast Guizhou portrays a Miao girl before marriage; through costume, color, and posture, the painting conveys the festive spirit and vitality embedded in local culture. Consort’s Reverie takes a figure from the Tang dynasty as its point of departure; through layered yet restrained color treatment, Yim renders a historical figure imbued with both imaginative resonance and emotional weight.

Yim Mau-Kun does not regard realism as the faithful replication of detail, but as a pursuit of a state of seeing that lies between representation and transformation. He has often cited Qi Baishi’s words—“The marvel lies between likeness and unlikeness; too much likeness is vulgar, too little is deceitful”—as a guiding principle of his practice. Through compositional choices, the rhythm of brushwork, and variations in paint thickness, his landscapes remain poised in this “between,” preserving traces of time before sensation fully settles. Such an approach allows the works not only to depict what is seen, but also to reveal a vital, living aura.

Opening in spring, the exhibition gains an added layer of symbolic renewal through the season itself. Yim Mau-Kun has mentioned that in recent years, springtime under the shadow of the pandemic left him feeling subdued, yet the staging of exhibitions rekindled a sense of joy—a psychological reawakening at its core. This transition from melancholy to delight is vividly embodied in his decades-spanning works painted from life. The exhibition features a selection of oil paintings closely associated with spring scenery, including Spring Comes to Lishan (Jesus Church) from 1990, as well as a series capturing cherry blossoms in full bloom in Nara and Osaka, such as Under the Cherry Tree and Cherry Blossom Grove.