the street is our gallery

GND Shuo is an artist based in Taiwan, he started to do graffiti at the age of 13. Aside from street art, he is also active in graphic design and scripting.In 2019, he was invited by 濕地｜venue, a multi-purposes space in Taipei, to create two pieces of street art work.

Situated in the art and cultural district of Taipei, Zhongshan, 濕地｜venue is a six-storey creative community consisting of three exhibition halls, one café and eatery, one bistro, and several studios. Various exhibitions and events continuously happened there, because the team keep reaching and working closely with emerging artists who are creative, young and full of potential. Recently there’s a project aiming to bring street art to the walls, and GND Shuo is the first artist invited. He made two pieces of work “Complete Flamingos”and “Scattered” in 濕地｜venue.

Here are some questions answered by the the artist:

Ｑ:When did you first learned about street art?
GND Shuo: I first learned about street art when I was in junior high school. It was a time when street art barely existed in my hometown Ilan. Onetime I went to a bookstore and noticed a book about street art, it literally wrote “Graffiti artists bomb Taiwan” on the cover, which totally aroused my curiosity. I thus bought the book and started to practice drawing similar things on paper. Until paperwork is no longer enough for me, I found an abandoned place and try to make my first street art work.

Q: Which style of street art do you like?
GND Shuo: I like surrealism, because it brings more imagination. Inspiration comes from daily experiences, for example books and films, or even something happened in our society. Sometimes I create an art piece out of a simple sentence.

Q: What do these two pieces of work talk about?

“Complete Flamingos”.  Am I happy or not, am I real or what, how do you know?
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GND Shuo: For me, flamingo means something, there’s certain label on it. It can be love, or things you like. I wondered how it will look like if I combined a twisted man with a flamingo? At first I felt the man I draw was unhappy, but somehow as I was about to finish the work, he seemed pretty satisfied and proud to be in the flamingo, as if it was his own little world.
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“Scattered”
GND Shuo: For this piece, I want to focus on people as well. It depicts a group of people crammed in a limited space. They twist their bodies, sit or lie in different angles, to show desire for air and life.
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When is comes to street art, technique is not his first priority; the concept and idea behind every art work is what matters the most. “Aside from pure beauty, what can you read from an art work?” he said.

Credit to 濕地｜venue (http://www.venue.tw/)