Huang Poren
Huang Poren, a Taiwanese sculptor, was born in Taichung, Taiwan. His ancestral homeland is Fujian, China. His grandfather and parents engaged in wood carving business. In his youth, he majored in sculpture at Fu-Hsin Trade & Art School. In 2001, Huang Poren had joined Graz International Sculpture Exhibition in Austria. He has also participated in several prominent art fairs in both Taiwan and overseas. His well-known pieces include aboriginal-figures and personified dogs. The National Taiwan Museum of Fine Art has already collected two of his works. His work "The Archer" has been published in textbooks for senior high school students in Taiwan.
Huang Poren's works became popular globally and continued to manifest positive attitudes which influence and touch a lot of people. Every sculptures are highly meaningful and have long-term mission, which is for the betterment of people in this 21st century, especially in the mind!
Early life and family
Huang Poren was born into a family of woodcarvers in Dajia District, Taichung. Both his grandfather and father were engaged in the woodcarving industry. During its heyday between 1960 and 1980, more than 100 woodcarvers were ceaselessly working at the Huang's woodcarving factory. They even had to sleep at the factory's dormitory at night. The scale of the woodcarving factory was very big; the products were exported to various countries. The land where the factory situated is very big and stored a lot of woodcrafts. A single piece of unprocessed high-end wood costs more than US$30,000 at that time. Since security systems were not installed at that time, Formosan Mountain Dogs were used to guard the factory and home in order to prevent the woods from getting stolen. The Huang's Formosan Mountain Dogs have existed continuously for generations; hence Huang Poren grew up in an environment surrounded by sculptures and Formosan Mountain Dogs.Huang Poren has an innate sense of delicacy and fancifulness. In today's society, he has his own distinct thoughts toward human nature and generational changes. He wants to transmit his thoughts through new art creations instead of duplicating craft. However, his father threatened to "renounce" him if he became an artist. He wanted him to continue producing wood sculptures, so that he could at least have a steady income. His father had no choice but to use the threatening tone because there were quite a few woodcarvers who had left the woodcarving factory in the hope of becoming romantic artists. However, they ended up suffering from the strain of poverty. Moreover, Huang Poren is the only male child in the family, as he has several sisters, but his father already advanced in age. Thus, his father was very worried that his son would be starved to death if pursued artistic works, he had no choice but to threaten him.
Since graduating from the sculpting group of Fu-Hsin Trade & Arts School in 1989, he did not run away from home like other romantic artists. Instead, he designated a small area at the factory for himself. He used wood, metal, rocks, and other cheap sculpting materials, and he strived to participate in sculpting competitions in various places. Throughout the years, he has received numerous awards. He has also attracted numerous visits from the media. His father then became aware of the matter, but he could not help in worrying his son.
Through The Dog's Notes, Huang Poren expresses that he will never abandon either his family or his creative artworks.
Style
Huang Poren's sculpture works concern Taiwanese aboriginals and Formosan Mountain Dog. Because of his great admiration for aboriginals' innocence and perseverance, the sculptor's early works, created from iron or wood, express their unique culture and difficult life vividly. With regard to The Dog's Notes series, those Formosan Mountain dogs raised by Huang Poren's family are a rich source of inspiration for him. It is taken for granted that dogs are the most trustworthy animal to human beings; however, dogs can also be a symbol of the dark sides to human character, as being snobbish or fawning. Some of Huang Poren's bronze dogs even resemble the appearance of a man.Starting 2005, Huang Poren created The Dog's Notes to express his care and loyalty toward his family. Although the elders were not being understanding, he has tried really hard to express himself. While using humorous ways to convey his ideas, he has also demonstrated his determination for guarding the freedom of creative artworks. Like Formosan Mountain Dogs, he is loyal, pure, and courageous; he manifests the positive attitude as a whole. This is exactly the inspiration obtained from the Formosan Mountain Dogs in his home. In 2007, Poren Huang's father died. He accompanied his father through the last days of his life in the hospital and created the sculpture Every Day is a New Start. He hopes that people can cherish every present moments and manifests golden-like positive radiance which shines eternally everyday in life.
Humanized-dog works
Using the dog as a creative starting point, each piece of work is suggestive of the "human". About ten to ninety percent of the works borrow from the dog to explore various human behaviors. Modern people generally feel kindly toward dogs because of their ability to soothe. Therefore, Huang Poren uses the dog as his creative theme to convey positive traits such as self-confidence, courage, loyalty or innocence, and to provoke in people deeper thoughts as they come in contact with his work. Many people are first attracted by the amusing forms; however, after a period of contact and interaction with the pieces, they seem to sense the deeper significance and remain inspired by positive ideas and thoughts.There are primarily two types of animals that appear in The Dog's Notes, the dog and the panda. They share a common characteristic of being humanized. These animals do not appear completely animal-like under Huang Poren's sculpting, but instead, they appear to have the scent of a human. That is why viewers tend to stand in front of the artwork and stare for quite a long time, unwittingly; perhaps it is because they did not get an affirmative answer as to whether the artwork is human or animal? When the dog and the panda enter the human's environment, they naturally learn to cohabitate with humans. They lose the wild nature of being wild animals, and become more humanized. People are the same way. Huang Poren wishes that humans can be more inspired by the dogs, and to learn the positive characters found in dogs, such as innocence, loyalty, kindness, bravery, and being passionate. Much like the Chinese proverb, "The son does not despise the mother for being ugly, and the dog does not blame the owner for being poor"; the dog will not despite the owner, and will not leave the owner, instead he will spend the rest of his life by his owner's side. Humans, on the other hand are different. They might look down on others or alienate others. They might even become disrespectful toward parents. The selfishness of humans causes wars and unrest in the world. Therefore, Poren Huang is not just creating artworks of animals, but instead, he is making his sculptures more humanized, so that the viewers can naturally reflect and be inspired.
In addition, Huang Poren's humanized works of art also have a little bit of the "Oriental Literati" essence. Although these artworks will have various emotions, but they are never too intense, and are never over the top. Just like Ang Lee, Xi Jinping, Yo-Yo Ma, Jeremy Lin, as well as other generally well-known Chinese, whose personalities are perhaps the same way, which is gentle and refined, and with the modesty of a gentleman. Much like the Eastern literai who are well read of poetry and literature, their emotions are not easily shown; they are more restrained, and are full of character and depth.