SHIH Yung Chun

SHIH Yung Chun (b. 1978, Taiwan)’s practice spans painting, sculpture, installation, photography, and text, centering on the exploration of private experiences of daily life and human behavior. His process often adopts cinematic and theatrical methods for scripting and staging before transforming these scenes into photography and painting. In recent years, he has increasingly presented his work through project-based exhibitions. SHIH’s father was an army officer from China, and he grew up in a military dependents’ village during Taiwan’s economic revival. His practice focuses on deconstructing cultural symbols across eras and reassembling fragments of society often forgotten. Approaching his work through the dual identity of recorder and producer, he stages scenes with vintage objects from his personal collection, combining them with his own sculptural creations before translating them into photography and painting. Moving from the fourth dimension (time) into three-dimensional space and finally into two-dimensional surfaces, Shih develops a cross-media body of work that entwines scarcity with consumerism, innocence with reality, and beauty with melancholy.

His series Toy Packaging draws from 1980s social magazines, newspapers, and commercial packaging. By reconstructing articulated figurines and staging scenes, SHIH transforms macro elements—world, culture, reality—into a microcosm of his own. Static history is revived into a dynamic yet fictional world, materialized as oil paintings resembling propaganda posters and sculptures presented as commodified Toy Packaging installations. Rather than offering a linear narrative, his display strategies fragment the viewer’s perception into distinct vessels, inviting interpretation and reflection on the work’s thematic concerns.

Born in Taipei, Taiwan, in 1978, SHIH Yung Chun graduated from the National Taiwan University of Arts in 2003. He has held solo exhibitions in China, Taiwan, and Korea. He participated in group exhibitions held in notable institutions including White Rabbit Gallery (Sydney, Australia, 2025; 2024), Heide Museum of Modern Art (Melbourne, Australia, 2024), Taitung Art Museum (Taitung, Taiwan, 2023), Long Museum West Bund (Shanghai, China, 2022), New Taipei City Arts Center (New Taipei, Taiwan, 2020), Today Art Museum (Beijing, China, 2012), and more. Shih was awarded the Taikai Prize at Geisai Taiwan #3 (2011) and Geisai Taiwan #1 (2009). His works are in the collections of White Rabbit Gallery (Australia), Long Museum (China), National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts (Taiwan), Art Bank (Taiwan), and the National Museum of History (Taiwan).