【INTRODUCTION】 Perfect Refinement – Artist Huang Ming-Che Text by Lin Han-Chun Huang Ming-Che is an abstract expressionism artist in Taiwan with strong, vibrant personal traits. His painting style is not one of pure abstraction, and he has a preference for the subject matter of people, which includes dream-like illusions with fantastical transformations of his personal image and also amorous expressions inspired by feminine figures. Through gestures of mutation and distortion, the characters depicted by Huang are abstracted and then further integrated with animals such as birds, cats, or dogs to reveal the characters’ underlining traits and personalities. He seeks to transcend beyond reality to search for forms of expression that resemble his inner world. The visual subjectivity of his paintings is constructed with lines that overlap with vivid and multilayered colors, with imaginative worlds created in them. Born 1948 in Yilan, Huang Ming-Che’s first oil painting solo exhibition was presented in 1976 at the Taiwan Provincial Museum, with him receiving great acclaim for his homeland realism painting style. After returning to Taiwan from the UK and the US in the 80s, he began working in the style of symbolism, with him awarded first prize for Taiwan Provincial Fine Arts Exhibition’s oil painting category consecutively in 1981 and 1982. Huang began experimenting with abstraction in the 90s, as he also began exploring three-dimensional artworks. Extracting symbolic elements from his paintings to incorporate in his three-dimensional creations, he also works with metallic materials to create refined lines and opaque colors. Moreover, his artworks are presented lifted above the ground, forming a new expressive visual approach, and he has since been commissioned to create many grand-scale monumental public artworks. A new format he has since expanded from his three-dimensional work has also become an integral part of his oeuvre and also subsequently impacting the way he paints, with him breaking free from conventional constraints between different genres. Huang’s journey in art has evolved from homeland realism to abstract expressionism, evolving from objective depictions of his subject matters’ external features to expressions of internal sentiments, with his art ranging from two-dimensional paintings to three-dimensional shapes and forms. Driven by his sense of mission and the ideology he holds for art, Huang is constantly self-reflecting and courageously breaking boundaries. He continues to explore different formats and styles, as he continues to inspire others through his relentless pursuit and hard work to overturn any conventionalities that may hinder his inspirations.