#yosifu

[thenextartmovement]

Native 🖼

Happy New Year, everyone! Hope everything was great in 2018, and I believe 2019 will be a nicer year.

For those of who have read I ❤️ Museums, thank you for spending time on my words and hope you guys have enjoyed and found some interesting artworks. This year, I’m gonna start a new blog topic -- contemporary indigenous art. Hope you guys can still find some artworks that interest you!!

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For the beginning of this year and the very first post, I am going to introduce an amazing indigenous artist -- Yosifu, a Taiwanese-born artist as well as an Ami, one of the aboriginal communities in Taiwan.

What kind of information are you looking for when looking at an artwork? The reason why the artist made this artwork? Or the special skills that the artist used in this piece of art?

The answers are varied. For me, the behind stories and the hidden message of artwork are more attractive than visual and aesthetic aspects. There is a discussion topic called “the ethnography of art” in the field of art anthropology. Ethnography is a method in anthropology, but at the same time, it could also be seen as a form of art, which emphasizes the cultural or social contexts of the production of artworks.

Yosifu is a self-taught artist and is now living in Edinburgh. Considering his indigenous background, Yosifu concerns the challenges that the Taiwanese indigenous people are facing. He makes a contribution to art education for the tribes’ children. Additionally, Yosifu happily shares the indigenous cosmology with the public through his artworks. He hopes the public and the world can understand Taiwanese indigenous people as well as Taiwanese contemporary arts better.

Laugh You Two

Medium: Oil & Acrylic on Canvas/Size: 80cm x 60cm/Year: 2011

Photo from: Yosifu Gallery

The indigenous cosmology is embedded in Yosifu’s artworks. The attracting story of this painting is the normal phrase for Ami people when they are taking a picture. Instead of saying “smile,” they usually say “smiles.” The two women in this artwork are wearing Ami’s traditional costumes. The Ami people love to smile and also like to give big smiles to people. They are always open-minded and passionate.

Purple Dance

Medium: Acrylic on Canvas/Size: 80cm x 60cm/Year: 2011

Photo from: Yosifu Gallery

“In honor of the ocean God, I dye my hair into the beautiful purple of the yam, to offer to you the deep love from the Tao women hair dance. We ask you bless the men fishing at sea, to bring a good harvest, and a safe return!” -- Description from the Yosifu Gallery’s website

This painting is telling a story of Tao, another indigenous community in Taiwan. The Tao people live on Orchid Island and has been isolated from other indigenous communities who have been living on the main island of Taiwan. The Tao people rely on oceanic resources. Therefore, they have so many tales about the ocean.

If you are living in New York City, you probably have seen Yosifu’s artworks already. His artworks were displayed on the subway cars of S-Line in October 2018! Yosifu was selected to be the representative artist of Taiwan. Three of his artworks were considered to be the iconic cultural image and were showed on the subway cars.

Photo credit: Tourism Bureau

Resources:

The art of life from tribes: Yosifu at TEDxTaipei 2012 (源自部落的生命藝術：優席夫 (Yosifu) at TEDxTaipei 2012), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BMJvFPocCL0

Keoni Everington, New Yorkers rave about Taiwan-themed subway cars, https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/3552487

Yosifu Gallery, http://www.yosifu.com/

- Regina Huang

[selfportraitsofcolor]

Yosifu / 優席夫, b. 1968 I Hear Myself Taiwan (2011) [Source]

He’s from the Amis tribe, an indigenous Taiwanese community!

Yosifu is a man who smiles warmly and frequently, and glows with an easy confidence. His self portrait, I Hear Myself (2011),  in which he depicts himself smiling, eyes closed, hand placed across his chest, a wreath of flowers encircling his head, tells a story of self-realization and acceptance. In his other paintings, aboriginal women smile and laugh, decked out in the vibrant colours and intricate patterns of their traditional costumes; muscular young men adopt powerful stances and gaze directly at the viewer.

Yet, the bright colours and confident brushstrokes which are the signature hallmarks of his work belie a multitude of stories which are much darker and complex. Seeping through the shadows of his work is the private pain of a marginalized and silenced community, an ethnicity which continues to fight for its voice to be heard above the din of the majority.

A member of the Amis tribe, Yosifu is building an international reputation for himself as a contemporary aboriginal artist. He spends half the year in his adopted home Edinburgh, Scotland participating in a variety of international arts festivals, and the other half in Taiwan where he has recently opened the Yosifu Taiwan Aboriginal Contemporary Art Gallery in Taipei and frequently hosts and attends different cultural events around the island with different aboriginal tribes.

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Yosifu