Ling-Wen Tsai

Ling-Wen Tsai was born in Taiwan and lived there for the first 25 years of her life. She currently lives and works in Portland, Maine, USA. The migratory and transient nature of her existence has influenced her way of living, thinking, and working. When an individual's linguistic and sociological environment is radically altered, a different set of values, expectations, and logic emerges. One's sense of the "norm" and the "absolute" are challenged. These experiences have liberated her from the expectation of Eastern Culture and the assumption of Western Culture.

Tsai's early work was driven by a desire to express the feelings of displacement that have followed her from Taiwan to the United States. This search for a sense of belonging became the driving force behind her creative process. In recent years, her work has evolved from a direct expressive language to a more subtle, abstract, and minimalistic approach. While still remaining true to who she is as an individual, Tsai has developed an artistic approach that draws the viewers into her world while still allowing space for their self-reflection.

Tsai's work has taken the form of painting, installation, performance art, photography, and video. While embracing these different mediums, she strives to free them from their preconceived definitions. The visual principles and knowledge that she has accrued through experimentation have become a source of guidance for her creative process. She has begun to utilize all these skills to form new cohesive experiences that extend beyond conventional classification. In recent years she has integrated visual, sound/music, and body/movement into her artistic practices, and has collaborated on a regular basis, with musicians, composers and sound artists such as, Lior Navok, Tracey Cockrell, George Winston, ISQ (Improvisational String Quartet), Nathan Kolosko, and Carl Dimow.