Text and interview by Yvette Cheng

The emergence of the Grand Tour in 18th-century British expanded the usual approaches to landscape painting. In the past, artists—often commissioned by aristocrats and the gentry—produced topographic views as visual portraits of country estates and mansions; however, with the rise of the Grand Tour, the depicted objects in landscape painting became much more diverse. As the Industrial Revolution in the late 18th century had further contributed to an increase in urban-rural polarization, depictions of urban life have unflinchingly incorporated modern infrastructure while the outskirts of cities developed a settlement style between urban and rural landscapes. For example, the Forest of Fontainebleau, far removed from any urban behemoths, gave birth to the Barbizon School, whose depictions focus mainly on nature. Landscape painting thus evolved from a mere decorative backdrop for mythological scenes to the witness of human civilization, chronicler of cultural activities, and marker of modern development. In “Landscape into Art,” Kenneth Clark even described landscape painting as the dominant art form of the 19th century, a period of rapid industrial and technological progress.

In the presence accelerated by urban sprawl, Tsai Meng-Chang emerges as a contemporary artist who sets out to capture the scenery of urban peripheries, especially those overlooked corners of a city, fragments of memories that risk being erased by the tides of history. As the saying goes, “Wherever you go, you leave a trace behind,” in the spirit of which Tsai works to preserve those city traces that might otherwise vanish with demolition, bringing in microcosm years of human activity. Setting these scenes in memories against the backdrops without human interference, he brings forth the trajectory of human life and, through them, bridges his personal narratives with the broader landscape of urban development, each closely resonating with the other.

Closing in From Afar: Transmutation of Mural Experience
Kaohsiung and Chiayi are two pivotal cities in Tsai’s work: one is his hometown, and the other holds the rich tapestry of familial memories and struggles, as well as those carefree high school days. “Since childhood,” Tsai recalls, “I’ve had all sorts of encounters with industry. Growing up in Nanzi near an oil refinery zone during elementary school, I could see the refinery straight from our alley entrance.” Industry and factories were ever-present in his childhood memories, and there were days when the mildly acidic odors of illegal waste dumping permeated the air. Among these memories, the image of that refinery stood out most vividly to him, later becoming the theme of his university works.

Tsai’s works from this period somewhat resemble New Topographics, presenting everyday memories from a sharp and detached perspective. The works are mainly composed in a horizontal layout that he deliberately employs to blur out vanishing points and extraneous details, thus emerging a technique choice that focuses only on the factories to give an air of a misty, distant view. As Tsai traveled northward from Nanzi, where he lived, toward Tainan, he observed, from between Qiaotou and Gangshan, a clean horizontal skyline juxtaposed with the vertical arrangement of factories. In areas between these two urban centers, Tsai used to stop to observe from afar, gazing. “I enjoy creating contrasts and ironies,” Tsai explains. “I intentionally lower the viewpoint, for factories are chaotic, towering, and noisy structures.” This choice of lowering the perspective is evident in his Factories series(2006–2008), in which he simplifies the scene to create a sense of detachment and nonchalance.

In 2008, with his submission of Factories to the Kaohsiung Award, Tsai won the Observer Special Prize, an award category introduced in 2007 to incorporate non-voting observers who participate in review deliberations and later present a comprehensive annual report on the trend of creative works and the state of the evaluation process. At a time when cartoon- and comic-themed art dominated the scene, Tsai remained resolute in his employment of low-saturation colors and a restrained narrative style to reconstruct his urban memories.

His artistic journey progressed from gazing from afar during college to standing directly in front of architectural structures. This shift occurred after he graduated from graduate school in 2010, when he was invited by Prof. Lee Chun-Hsien to join the Formosa Wall Painting Group (Formosa for short), participating in projects such as “Guide ByWood” and “Socially Engaged Art.” Through them, his perspective started to close in from afar, allowing him to immerse himself in structures, giving full play to those overlooked corners of a city. In the works produced during his graduate studies, the once magnificent industrial towns—which, when gazed from afar, were rendered simply as outlines by horizontal composition—were presented in a misty, dreamlike manner that brought out an almost tangible scent of nostalgia. However, joining Formosa marked a turning point. Creating murals brought Tsai closer to the rural and everyday settings, creating genuine interactions with varied groups of local communities. It was precisely through this immersion that he realized the gradual disappearance of peripheral areas—such as Qiaotou, Gangshan, and Luzhu—due to urban expansion, as a result of which old buildings and traditional courtyard houses were increasingly replaced by skyscrapers. Tsai discovered that only by moving closer, directly engaging the walls and structures, can the fragmented, displaced city corners and those flouring yet unnoticed plants be fully systematically observed. Although he did not participate in every mural project, he still considers this period a crucial fulcrum that enabled him to examine the cities and their memories from perspectives he had never previously explored.

“Although many say that corrugated iron houses have ruined the landscape of Taiwan, I really have seen some beautiful ones,” Tsai continued, “not in the sense of good design, but in their vibrant, visually pleasing patchwork.” In a series of works centered on these houses, he adopts a realistic approach to detail the monochromatic depictions of their walls and the scratches and rust stains formed over time. “On the contrary, I think the corrugated iron best represents Taiwan’s landscape, for it reflects the islanders’ limited resources. It’s a material that allows factories to be built quickly and affordably.” To him, these houses are more than just some makeshift structures; they embody the resilience of ordinary people striving to hold their ground amidst the rapid urban expansion. Tsai’s almost mechanical brushstrokes repeat on the canvas like the bright and dark undulations of the iron roof, much like a scene of solidarity where we are standing side by side with those factory workers, witnessing their daily toil and mundane, repetitive efforts.

“I wasn’t quite used to the shared living situation with a large extended family when I first moved to Chiayi in 2016,” Tsai admitted with a smile. “I sometimes go back alone to the downstairs area around my former studio in Kaohsiung just to look at those familiar shops and streets before quietly heading back to Chiayi.” He turned to exploring the family history to cope with the sense of displacement that came with this migration. The series Home and Lineage reflect fragments of family memories on the verge of being forgotten. With his brush, Tsai sought to reclaim and revive the stories of those memories that had faded with the passing of the elders, and through this act of picking up the fragments, he attempted to grow roots of his own within this land.

The Lineage series began in 2018 when Tsai traveled to Budai for work. As a descendant of a Budai family, he used the opportunity to retrace family stories and childhood recollections rooted in the area. “My grandfather and other elders used to sell fish,” Tsai reminisced. “They would carry loads that weighed about 50 to 60 kilograms on their shoulders, trotting from the fishing grounds to Chiayi East Market to sell their catch. Afterward, they’d walk to Puzi and take the bus home.” Though these lines of description sound effortless, a glance at a map would reveal that this was actually a journey of over 30 kilometers burdened with heavy loads. As brick kilns were later constructed in Chiayi’s urban areas, many Budai fishermen, including Tsai’s grandfather’s family, moved to the city for work. To this day, Chiayi retains place names alluding to its brick kiln history. Through repeated walks in Budai, Tsai forged connections between his art, the ancestors, and the land of Chiayi, drawing him closer to a place that once felt unfamiliar and even weighed heavily on his mind. By blending memories and reflections on daily life into his oil paints, he presented his works in a restrained manner. These are not so much memories of a home as a bridge that reconnects him to Chiayi through the concept of “home,” as well as an undertone of homesickness for Kaohsiung.

If Tsai’s “Home” and “Lineage” series represent his attempts to reconnect with an image of home through the memories and ancestral bloodlines during his migratory period, then his depictions of containers and ships at Kaohsiung Port would serve as the embodiment of his homesickness. Our attachment to things often inversely correlates with distance: the farther away we are, the stronger our longing would be. In contrast to the muted tones used to portray family life and old houses, the Kaohsiung Port series departs from the industrial silhouettes of his earlier works, embracing brighter, more vibrant colors that exude vitality.

During his days spent among Chiayi, Tainan, and Kaohsiung, Tsai, while developing a growing interest in the traces of people’s past lives, began using halved houses as a center theme in his paintings, such as, for example, Successful Youth  and Chuangzao Village. “What piques my interest about halved houses is that my first impression is always that they have ‘died’ somehow, for they have been torn open. But once a house is cut open, you can see the wall structures and marks, which are really interesting. You can even see where objects used to be placed just by looking at the exposed wall surfaces,” Tsai explains. In Successful Youth, for instance, the exposed, vividly colorful wall of the violently halved building is mesmerizing, making one wonder what kind of people who used to live inside it would have created such a vibrant space. Once the house is exposed, every trace of its past becomes visible. Even without human figures in the composition, these remnants of daily life would hint at the years people spent within the walls. The building in “Successful Youth” was only a fleeting discovery he glimpsed when he drove by once. Yet, when he revisited the exact location a month later, the building had already been demolished, disappearing without a trace as though its memories and traces of children playing inside the walls had never existed at all.

The City Without Railway: Documenting Vanishing Urban Memories
As a symbol of modernization, railways were one of the most critical transportation hubs in the 19th century, intricately linked to urban development and economic transformation. While in Europe, where cities are historically dense and well-established, railways tend to connect with the edges of towns and cities, railway development and expansion in the US and Taiwan, however, often accompanied the rise of new towns that grew around these transportation networks. Taiwan’s railway system began in 1904 during the late Qing Dynasty when Liu Ming-Chuan proposed its construction. This initiative laid the groundwork for further expansion during the Japanese colonial period. Taiwan’s transportation network gradually took shape through the development of state-operated railways and local light rail systems.

With urban expansion and increasing populations, land has become even more scarce. Around 2019, efforts to revitalize the struggling urban development around railways and to acquire more usable land brought railway grade separation projects back into media focus. A report by the Ministry of Transportation and Communications in that year, titled “An Impact Analysis of a Railway Grade Separation Construction on Traffic and Urban Development,” assessed the ongoing and planned projects across Taiwan. It examined fully underground railways in the Taipei metropolitan area, the under-construction underground system in Kaohsiung, and the railway elevation projects in Chiayi, among others. The report also highlighted the protests organized by residents affected by the 2012 Tainan Urban District Railway Underground Project, who formed a self-help association to resist the demolition of family homes. When urban landscapes undergo significant changes, the lives of those tied to those lands and buildings inevitably face displacement and transformation. It was within this context that The City Without Railway series unfolded. One weekend in 2010, as railways in Chiayi were undergoing grade separation, Tsai began to notice the original landscapes gradually vanishing because of the project. In light of the completion of the underground railway construction in Kaohsiung, he originally planned to spend three years traveling around Taiwan to observe areas where grade separation projects were still in progress. However, the pandemic disrupted his plans, leading him to focus instead on Chiayi, Tainan, and Zhongli.

“Little Penghu is a distribution center located at the back of Chiayi Station,” Tsai explained, referring to an area on Chiayi’s Houyi St. “The need to handle freight naturally creates high demand for labor.” Beginning in the 1920s, as the freight industry flourished around the station, many people from Penghu migrated here to work as laborers, carpenters, and daily wage earners. Hiding within winding lanes, the buildings in this area were tightly packed houses, each with doors and entrances facing different directions. With the advent of railway grade separation projects, the neighborhood’s buildings are now divided into old and new sections as residents compete to claim prime locations amid the elevation plan. This densely populated area, full of traces of people who have lived here, is reimagined on the canvas as three sofas in The City Without Railway-4 Little Penghu, a scene set under a yellowish light as though one could smell the sun-baked scent of aged leather. Tsai’s distinctive representation of light is a hallmark of his work. As you stop to gaze at “Little Penghu,” it would feel like you have stumbled upon an alley on a crisp afternoon that you have never trodden before, suddenly realizing this tranquil scene. It is as though the world is still asleep, its people temporarily away, leaving you alone to appreciate the sunlight falling upon this quiet corner. As you slowly take in the serenity and this lively scene, you might be struck by the realization that such scenes—once rich with memories and life—may no longer exist today, leaving you with a bitter sense of loss.

The City Without Railway is a journey from Chiayi to Tainan and then to Zhongli. One piece, The City Without Railway-18 Vision of Mind, depicts a location near Tainan Station. Tsai, passing by the spot, initially mistook it for a factory from its towering walls, small windows, and corrugated metal structure; to his surprise, it turned out to be a cram school named “Vision of Mind.” The contrast between the name and the building’s industrial appearance aligns with Tsai’s subtle sense of humor, prompting one to wonder whether cram schools are themselves a kind of factory that forge students into the “vision of success” their parents and the institution aspire to create. “I enjoy exploring different expressions of irony to tell the stories behind my paintings,” Tsai continued. Other than “Vision of Mind,” this penchant for playful names also appears in works like Successful Youth (成功青年echoes the names of Chenggong Road and Qingnian Road in Kaohsiung, while also carrying the meaning of successful young individuals), which features a halved house, and Wufu (五福), which depicts nothing more than a parking lot.

Tsai has another series distinctly different from his other works, titled “Between,” which centers on close-up depictions of plants. “It all began when I was still scouting locations for my work,” he explained. “There are trees and plants that I happened to capture during my walks.” He mentioned that the hardy banana ranks first among the most common trees in streetscapes, the parasol leaf tree second, and the paper mulberry third. Other frequently seen plants include banyan trees and dragon fruit vines clinging to the exterior walls of homes. During his past train commutes, Tsai had already noticed these wild, sprawling plants, particularly native species like the parasol leaf tree, flourishing on the roadsides. As part of Taiwan’s indigenous flora, these plants often spring on the peripheries of cities and even by the roadsides. Despite being dismissed as wild weeds, they continue to strive with remarkable vitality. The “Between” series somewhat shares a conceptual similarity with The City Without Railway. Just as railways and villages clustered along the edges of cities, people—like Taiwan’s native plants—demonstrate incredible resilience as they confront railway modernization and grade separation projects. Both seek to establish new settlements of their own in the face of transformation.

A Closing Remark
When asked about his next steps, Tsai shyly shared that he is interested in issues related to people without housing. He hopes that one day, he will be able to place himself in a humble position, viewing the city from a lower angle looking upward. Tsai’s works stand as quiet witnesses to memories and landscapes once cherished but gradually erased by the passage of time. Through his art, he responds to and preserves those fragments swept away by the tides of history. As time flows slowly onward, he remains a traveler on the urban peripheries, wandering through light and shadow, quietly collecting dreams and memories—some long lost, others left unfinished.