HOTPINK

An award-winning architectural designer based in Taiwan; Ling-Li Tseng started creating the wall-mounted sculpture series Seasons of Lupus in 2016. Left alone at her London home with mild skin rashes caused by a work-related resin allergy, Tseng began experimenting with bright pink expandable foam— an industrial material commonly used as wall insulation, resulting in a series of seemingly ornamental and hauntingly beautiful work. Composed of colorful self-expanding foam and layers of hand-dyed Spandex nest regulating the foam’s movement, the body of work offers subtle gradations of colors and reflectivity. Neatly arranged in oval and rectangular shapes, the pieces also remind the viewer of tribal ritual masks or miniature landscapes, sequentially leaving us in an awed fascination with the world of wonder, myth, and irregular energies.

Tseng’s creations, whose material is drawn from a multitude of architectural traditions, have an explicit relationship to the body, exploring how the perceptual individual experiences are shaped by societal, economic, and geographical structures that are particular to a certain time. These eccentric variations, achieved by knowledge the artist obtained from her work, supply seemingly free-growing forms with complex inquiries into the nature of control and chance. However, Tseng’s virtuosic approach is more than an extension of her professional achievement. It is a complete submission into her internal experience and an ordered expression of objects and space.

With an intentionally naïve quality, Temptation (2018 – ) and Addiction (2022 – ) series by Taiwanese-American artist Judy Gee stand one meter tall and one meter wide each—audaciously scaled for her voluptuous subject matter in sweet everydayness. Inspired by her time living in Shanghai from 2008 to 2016, Judy began depicting simple everyday indulgences but quickly dived into blunt seduction—power, wealth, and violence. With meticulous brushwork and vivid color palette, the artist presents hyper-realistic sweet treats with the magnificent glaze, which presence acts as an unsettling foil to the darker sprinkles— sometimes your normal confetti, sometimes golden bullets.

Confronted by the giant donuts perhaps looked at first luminous, dreamy, and plain as day, the viewer, on a closer investigation, awakens to the sheer density brought out by the pictures, of the myopic obsessions and the long-running addictions, with which the world is brimming—one for each of us. Gee—while making sense of her own desires and bicultural identity—conducts a sharp

interrogation on addictive behaviors and investigates the mastery of willpower. “It’s right in your face. Unapologetically”, said the artist.

HOTPINK’s month-long program will feature private and public art tours, and one print and object signing event led by the artists. The exhibition is organized in collaboration with WANGSIM.

About the Artists

Ling-Li Tseng possesses expertise in immersive spatial experiences, installation art, and material experiments, with a style and scale that are unlimited. She holds master’s degrees in architecture and design from The Cooper Union and Harvard University in the United States. Currently, she serves as an Assistant Professor at the Institute of Architecture at National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University. In 2016, she co-founded Serendipity Studio to facilitate collaboration among various creators, and her work has won numerous international awards, including the Red Dot: Best of the Best Award, Good Design Award, Golden Pin Award, TID Award, Shenzhen Global Design Award, and [d]arc award.

Tseng’s multifaceted identity allows her creations to traverse the domains of science, engineering, and the arts, oscillating between the realms of fantasy and practicality. Her works evoke a dialogue between the artificial and the natural, imbued with a graceful spirituality that exudes a fairy tale-like quality. The narrative experience she crafts is intertwined with a quest for invention and technology, consistently showcasing the innovative and inventive techniques she employs in her artwork. Tseng’s work has been exhibited extensively in Taiwan and the United States and her work has been presented in multiple public collections across the globe, which include Design Museum Portland (USA), and Taipei Government (Taiwan). Tseng currently lives and works in Hsinchu, Taiwan.