Michael Hsieh

Michael Hsieh | Still Life
28 July – 8 August
Opening: Tues 28th July, 5.30 – 7pm

“In recent years, still life painting has been overshadowed by post-modernism, but it has remained the central interest of my practice. I have always wanted to acknowledge the old masters’ style while simultaneously exploring contemporary art practice.

Life and death is a theme that I continually return to as the perennial preoccupation of every human being. It is also the theme in the traditional Dutch still life painting that inspires me.

I use the egg as my central subject and source of inspiration, because the egg speaks so much as an object. It symbolises newborn life, as well as death. Aesthetically their subtle texture and pure white shape make them challenging subjects to paint. The egg is the object that traditionally the artist practiced painting to ‘perfection’ before advancing on to painting human figures.

These small, fragile, reflective eggs appear in various settings in my work, changing their reading each time they move”.
-Michael Hsieh


Michael’s rich palette and skilful painting style provide contemplative pieces that can be admired for their skill and beauty as well as their depth of meaning. The eggs he employs in his works are likened to a signature on a canvas, offering another level of understanding, alluding to what the beautifully rendered still life work might have behind it.