Li-Wen Kuo depends on a strong concept of individuality. The principle of seriality is alien to their work. Even where one believes to discover variations, each image has grown out of itself, has its own center of power that organizes it. Nevertheless, all images feed on the same light source, which almost always appears as a shine on the surface. When she does not, one senses her subtle presence, as if seeking a place to break out of the picture. This illusion has nothing to do with illusion. What is the visible, what is the invisible? Looming is called in English the shadowy appearance of an object. Far away or seen through fog. Elusive and of doubtful identity. Such loomings happen in Kuos pictures. The blurring of the contour or the transparency of the form are not always responsible for the insecurity of the gaze. There is something that eludes itself. It lies behind the abundance that one sees, hidden. The rigor of the individual composition corresponds to a release of the image content. In their basic openness, the images establish a relationship with the viewer, which has its reason in itself. What Kuo aims for with her work is the inexhaustibility of this relationship.


With Malevich's Black Square, "painting" has reached the zero point of reduction. From him only a positive move is possible. Since then, the painter has been wondering what he can do or what he can do again. In addition to the perception of pure form, Li-Wen Kuo is concerned with the approach to a core that can not otherwise be described as "spiritual". Intuition and conscious steering work as equivalent tools. No element arises in this procedure without connection to the other element. Kuo's attitude here is to entrust oneself to the image, to learn to see it, and finally to continue methodically. The inner logic of the composition transmits pure forms into atmosphere carriers. Therein lies a parallel to the wordless, but by no means dumb music.