Wu Chi-Tsung’s Cyano-Collage series stands at the intersection of tradition and innovation, embodying the artist’s early introduction to classical Chinese art forms while simultaneously forging a contemporary visual language rooted in material experimentation and photographic process. Trained from a young age in the practices of Chinese calligraphy, ink painting, watercolor, and drawing, Chi-Tsung spent many years working within these time-honored idioms. Though his practice has expanded to encompass new media and technology, the philosophical and aesthetic foundations of Chinese landscape painting—shan shui, or “mountain-water pictures”—remain central to his approach.

In the Cyano-Collage series, Chi-Tsung replaces the traditional ink and brush with experimental photography, reviving the poetic language of landscape through an entirely contemporary lens. Each work begins with sheets of Xuan paper—historically used in Chinese painting and calligraphy—that he hand-coats with light-sensitive cyanotype solution. Once dried, these papers are carefully creased and crumpled by hand, exposed to sunlight, and then flattened and collaged onto aluminum panels. The resulting compositions evoke the tonal subtleties and spatial depth of classical landscape painting, yet are composed entirely through chance-based photographic methods and manual manipulation.

Wu Chi-Tsung’s innovative work features a broad range of media including photography, video, installation and painting, in which he combines traditional and contemporary forms and methodologies to explore perceptions of the physical and natural worlds. Trained from an early age in the practices of Chinese calligraphy, Chinese ink painting, watercolor and drawing, Wu Chi-Tsung worked for many years in a traditional idiom. Following a period spent creating experimental ink paintings, he turned to video, installation and photography, finding in these new media compelling conceptual stratagems that spurred new and dynamic approaches to making images. These have included films that conceptually translate traditional cut-branch flower paintings into time-based moving images and his recent Cyano-Collage Series, in which he connects Eastern and Western culture and art to integrate traditional aesthetics with startling contemporary language. 

Born in 1981 in Taipei, Wu Chi-Tsung currently lives and works in Taipei, Taiwan and Berlin, Germany. He was the recipient of the Liu Kuo Sung Ink Art Award, Hong Kong and Taiwan, 2019. In addition, he was awarded the WRO Media Art Biennial, 2013 and Taipei Arts Award, 2003. He was short-listed for the Prudential Eye Awards, 2015 and the Artes Mundi, 2006. In 2023, he was presented a solo exhibition, Synchronicity, at the Katonah Museum of Art, New York. His work has been included in international exhibitions at institutions such as the Mori Art Museum, Japan; the National Museum Cardiff, United Kingdom; the Long Beach Museum of Art, Los Angeles; the Casino Luxembourg – Forum d’art Contemporain, Luxembourg; the Museo Del Palacio De Bellas Artes, Mexico; the Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA) Art Museum, Beijing, China; Shanghai Art Museum, China; the Seoul Museum of Art, South Korea; the Minsheng 21st Century Museum, Shanghai, China; the Museum of Contemporary Art Yinchuan, China; the Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art, Japan; the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art (UCCA), Beijing, China and the Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Taiwan amongst others. His work is included in renowned collections such as the Xie Zilong Photography Museum (XPM), the Post Vidai Collection, M+ Hong Kong, The Vero Beach Museum of Art, The Santa Barbara Museum of Art, and the Borusan Contemporary Art Collection.