Shi-Wei Lien
Past Artist In Residence
2002

Clothier and metal-smith Shi-Wei Lien has a keen eye for pleasing shapes. Her residency at 18th Street the summer of 2002 produced “I Saw an Air of Stubborn Dignity from a Wilted Flower:” an open-studio exhibition of a site-specific installation, utilizing media dried plants, thread, needle, paper, and pastel. Her installation incorporates a range of materials, including human hair and paper sewn to various articles of clothing, in an effort to create an abstract portrait of the relationship between the manufactured and organic elements in everyday life. Created at the same time, “About Another Body – Hair” is an open studio exhibition of a site-specific performance installation, featuring long black strands of hair trapped in a glass jar. Past exhibitions with metalwork took place in Taiwan, such as the “Relationship of Metal” at Want Space in Taichung (2001); and in the U.S., her work took part in the group show “Enlightening Materials: Contemporary Metalwork from Taiwan,” at the Artemisia Gallery in Chicago (2000).