委託創作
Series V · Commissions 委託創作Ink panels for CityInn Hotel in Taipei, logotypes brushed for four Italian houses, a Mid-Autumn edition for Häagen-Dazs × Louvre.
One pursuit, for a lifetime. The brush that copies the Heart Sutra also writes a brand's name.
精品
Luxury houses企業
Corporations機構
Institutions藝術與商業
CommissionsKu's master's thesis showed that brush and ink could enter poster design; the commissions followed. A name written by hand has an entry stroke and an exit, wet ink and dry, which no typeface reproduces. She also reads a production brief.
The first logotypes were for a Taiwan Railway commemorative liquor, a music service, a financial news channel and the Xingang Fengtian Temple; she grouped them as a series, 繁體字之美, The Beauty of Traditional Characters. Gucci, Mercedes-Benz and the Häagen-Dazs × Louvre edition came later. Kiton, Stefano Ricci, Fabiana Filippi and Shiatzy Chen are fashion partnerships: there the houses dressed the artist. She gives one reason for working with brands, and it is the reason she gives for calligraphy: to put a thousand-year-old line back in public view.
TEDxYongkang · Clip
Where art meets commerce
藝術 × 商業 一條新路
0:46
委託案例
Selected projects
CityInn Hotel on Fuxing North Road 台北新驛旅店復興北路店 commissioned the ink for its whole ground floor. Two tall panels, black ink on a yellow ground, hang behind the reception desk on bare concrete. Square canvases of one stroke or one character each continue above the lounge seating and down the corridors, stepped between blocks of yellow and grey.
A Taipei jeweller commissioned a set of small ink-wash panels for the backs of its display niches. Each sits in a bronze frame, lit from inside the cabinet. Rubies, emeralds and diamonds are set out in front of a black wash on cream.
Mercedes-Benz showed mineral paintings from the studio at its AMG launch: mandalas on easels on the showroom floor, between a silver AMG GT and a grey GLE coupé.
品牌聯名
Häagen-Dazs × Louvre
For the Mid-Autumn Festival edition from Häagen-Dazs × Louvre, Ku made Mona Lisa in camouflage, her version of the museum's best-known portrait.
For Shiatzy Chen, the Taipei couture house, Ku made the house's core art series.
時裝
Shiatzy Chen
Kiton, Stefano Ricci, Fabiana Filippi and Shiatzy Chen each partnered with Ku as a fashion collaboration, with the artist rather than the brush in front of the camera. Photographs from the partnerships are shown on request. Her lettering, meanwhile, has run in a Toyota television spot and as the title of a feature film; the broadcast records are below.
View the Calligraphy series Broadcast record
For the Taichung Flora Expo, Ku's mandalas were projected inside a pavilion lined with mirrors, across the floor, walls and ceiling, with a skyline of temple roofs along the lower edge. The pavilion, a tent printed with peach blossom, stood inside the exhibition hall. Visitors walked into the painting.
Xingang Fengtian Temple, a Mazu temple in Chiayi, first commissioned its logotype from Ku. She later brushed the calligraphy for the temple's centenary blessing and joined its art parade. A digital edition of the blessing is listed in the archive below.
廟宇
Xingang Fengtian Temple
Enquiries about the editions are answered from the Taipei studio.
合作作品
Selected collaborations
委託訂製
Commission
Every series is in private and public collections. Works are now made to commission only: bespoke single works, and commissioned series or batch editions for brands, institutions, hotels and collectors. Commissions are scheduled from a waiting list. Prices on application.
ScopeEach mineral painting is built on more than twenty layers of hand-mounted paper, which is why a series is scheduled from the waiting list. Every work leaves the studio with a certificate of authenticity, the patent's technical documentation and a provenance record, and is shipped and insured worldwide.