We are pleased to present Shida Kuo's second solo exhibition at Sokyo Gallery. Shida Kuo is a Taiwanese-born sculptor living and working in New York City. This exhibition introduces thirty-two pieces of works focusing on his new body of work, and his sketches which were made in the 90's will be shown first time in the public.
His creativity is driven by a series of fundamental questions he has for forms and materials: Why would some particular types of forms and materials always possess more visceral power over him than others? Why do people of different origins and backgrounds respond to forms and materials in an identical way? Is that an evidence of homogeneity of mankind as a collective species? His search for the origin of emotional and spiritual impacts created by particular forms and materials invites us to experience a collective sense of deja-vu, or as Allen Weiss calls, "a joyful disquietude."
Shida Kuo purposely chooses clay and wood for his creations, the materials which have been associated in human lives for thousands of years. Through somatic conversations with these materials, he transforms fragments of ancient memories to a complete essence of forms. The result is a simple earthenware which invokes primitive yet at the same time universal sense of our lost selves.