PRINTCatalogue Note:
As an apprentice to the maestro, Li Jin-Chuan, in 1953, Ju Ming started his sculptural career by learning traditional woodcarving of gods. In 1968, Ju Ming went north from Miaoli to follow the modern sculptor, Yuyu Yang. Ju Ming formally became an artist from craftsman at thirty, and then developed the earliest "Nativist Series" mainly on rural subjects like carts, buffalos and chickens, which attracted attention in art and literature circles with the first exhibition at the National Museum of History in 1976, and was even turned into one of the symbols of the Taiwanese Native Movement in the 70s.
In his early years, Ju Ming gave the woodcarving of a small chicken to a famous ink painter, Uchiyama, in Japan. Uchiyama was highly moved and then wrote him an article in return: "I greatly marveled at this refined sculpture right after taking a glance of it. Few and accountable, each of these bold and rough slashes depicts the vitality of chickens. I expressed my cheerful sound and feeling, and further noticed the motion of the knife... Surely he observed the unfinished woodblock in detail, and depicted in mind each moment of chickens according to its texture." Uchiyama regards the beauty of slashes and the script of ink paintings as the same.
Several years after his announcement of "Taichi Series", Ju Ming's woodcarving works, "Chicken" with an even more succinct and lively style, belonging to the latter part of his "Nativist Series", was finished in 1980 when he was gradually well-know in art circles of Asia. His observation on his simple experience of life made it easy for him to depict the subject about chickens. "With a background in Tongsiao, Miaoli, Ju Ming is particularly found of observing every movement of chickens. As homestay accommodations are recently popular in Hehuan Mountain, in a childlike manner Ju Ming as well named his henhouse 'Chicken Homestay' written with a Chinese brush on the fascia", wrote Miss Li Tsai-hung after an interview with Ju Ming in 2003. (Business Weekly, issue 810, Taipei, 2003) "Chicken", worth admiration and appreciation, purely displays the sculptor's genius and the very interesting arrangement and sequence of chickens.
In his early years, Ju Ming gave the woodcarving of a small chicken to a famous ink painter, Uchiyama, in Japan. Uchiyama was highly moved and then wrote him an article in return: "I greatly marveled at this refined sculpture right after taking a glance of it. Few and accountable, each of these bold and rough slashes depicts the vitality of chickens. I expressed my cheerful sound and feeling, and further noticed the motion of the knife... Surely he observed the unfinished woodblock in detail, and depicted in mind each moment of chickens according to its texture." Uchiyama regards the beauty of slashes and the script of ink paintings as the same.
Several years after his announcement of "Taichi Series", Ju Ming's woodcarving works, "Chicken" with an even more succinct and lively style, belonging to the latter part of his "Nativist Series", was finished in 1980 when he was gradually well-know in art circles of Asia. His observation on his simple experience of life made it easy for him to depict the subject about chickens. "With a background in Tongsiao, Miaoli, Ju Ming is particularly found of observing every movement of chickens. As homestay accommodations are recently popular in Hehuan Mountain, in a childlike manner Ju Ming as well named his henhouse 'Chicken Homestay' written with a Chinese brush on the fascia", wrote Miss Li Tsai-hung after an interview with Ju Ming in 2003. (Business Weekly, issue 810, Taipei, 2003) "Chicken", worth admiration and appreciation, purely displays the sculptor's genius and the very interesting arrangement and sequence of chickens.