In reviewing one of Vivian Tsao's prior CERES shows, Michael Brenson of THE NEW YORK TIMES wrote:
Ms. Tsao has an honesty and taut eccentricity that suggest a genuine vision. Between the Middle Eastern light, and the discretion that is characteristic of Chinese art--and between the experience of danger and willingness to keep looking into the light--there is a potential for a moving and instructive statement."
"The spareness of this (Tsao's) work has to do with bare rooms, but it also has to do with the light, which is often Middle Eastern in its glare. The light does not so much illuminate as threaten to devour. It invades the rooms.
Vivian Tsao: Although I have never seen my grandparents who remained in China after the 1949 revolution, I remember clearly some of the Chinese calligraphy from our "old home". These pieces of Chinese painting and calligraphy brought by my father to Taiwan have always been part of my life. My father views this art form as a means to cultivation. He has practiced it himself for much of his life, and he began teaching it to me when I was six.
Vivian Tsao: When I moved to Saudi Arabia, a land free from all artistic theories, I developed a profound relationship with light.
Vivian Tsao: In Jeddah, I spent hours each day gazing into the distant scene from my window or at the scene of an interior of several doors letting in light from different sources--some cool, some warm. This experience gradually led me to read light as if it had moods, as if it were sculptures of time.
Vivian Tsao left her native Taiwan for graduate studies in painting at Carnegie Mellon University. Now a resident of New York City, she has lived in the Middle East and in Europe. Tsao has exhibited her works in major venues such as the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Brooklyn Museum and Taipei Fine Arts Museum. In 1985, Tsao was a recipient of the prestigious New York State Council on the Arts "Artist-in-Residence" Award.
In addition to painting, Tsao has written about art in Chinese language essays and interviews with Western art figures such as Philip Pearlstein and critic Hilton Kramer published for the major Taiwanese paper China Times and for Hsiung Shih an international art magazine published in Taipei. An art interviews and essays book "The Mark of Time: Dialogues with Vivian Tsao on Art in
New York" was published by Hsiung Shih Art Books in February 2003. Vivian Tsao works in her studio and also serves as adjunct professor of drawing and design at Pace University in New York City. Tsao exhibits her work regularly at Ceres Gallery. Recent exhibitions include:
2006 "100% Centennial Exhibition"
Regina Gouger Miller Gallery, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA
2005 "The Mark of Time" (Solo Exhibition), Ceres Gallery (NYC)
2004 "Invitational Exhibition of Painting & Sculpture", American Academy of Arts & Letters (NYC)
2003 "The Pastel Society of America Invitational Exhibition",
The Butler Institute of American Art,
Youngstown, OH
2003 "Private Views: Places, Faces and Figures", Curator Series, Pastel Society of America, National Arts Club (NYC)
2003 "Light in the Season" (Solo Exhibition),
Ceres Gallery (NYC)
2002 "Subtext: Realismplus", Inaugural Curator Series, Pastel Society of America, National Arts Club (NYC)
2002 "20/02", The Rotunda Gallery, BRIC/Brooklyn Information & Culture, Brooklyn, NY
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