Art is king in the world of Wu
He is one of those talented people who seems to turn anything he touches into a work of art. Join Janelle Chanona as she explores the world of Wu.
Janelle Chanona, Reporting
On Friday night ?The Word of Wu: Art and Design by Steve Wu will open at the Image Factory in Belize City.
The collection includes cartoons … carvings … cards … and photographs.
As a young boy in Taiwan, Wu was interested in everything artistic and he quickly covered any paper he could find with his drawings. That hobby evolved into a career and soon Wu was winning awards in Taipei for his work. Today that body of work includes beauty and wonder … tragedy and disaster … life and laughter.
In 1996, Steve and his wife Susan relocated to Belize and with his partner Margaret Hsia, soon became a successful businessman.
His English is not perfect but Steve hopes his pieces … and Margaret … will do all the talking for him.
Margaret Hsia, Translator
?From the photos, you would say Wow … fighting in the street or some tragedy that happened, you would see violence. But Taiwan is not exactly like that because as a social photographer, because he worked on this field, but some of it just presents to people that this is normal thing because this is a country working towards democracy. But please don?t think about Taiwan just like this, so horrible. Taiwan is a beautiful and friendly, very warm country … so welcome to travelling to Taiwan.?
Wu estimates he has taken millions of photographs but one of his favourite activities is to create his mind?s images from stone, volcanic rock or more recently, wood.
Margaret Hsia
?The most thing he want to share people are his carvings because he has meaning to it. He has words to share with people to present his ideas. Basically he love wood, and he basically mentioned that Belize has the most beautiful and high quality lumber, wood in Belize and this is why he pick wood as the material to present his artwork.?
The artwork on display includes ?the chair? or as Wu calls it, The Seat of Mr. President. Made from local mahogany, the seat is covered entirely by nails to illustrate an important message.
Margaret Hsia
?No matter which president from which country, as the president, this is a very hard job because every day you have to so many things to do. As a president, how to say, is a very, not only the president, but everybody, if you have a hard time, and you are struggling with the challenges in front of you, it?s just like sitting on the needles. The needle chair is hard but this is challenge, this is life. But basically he doesn?t want to be political, what he wants to share is a kind of humour, just remind people, see this is what life is.?
The Word of Wu will officially open tomorrow night and will run until November twentieth.
Reporting for News Five, I am Janelle Chanona.
