Dirk Tsai (b. 1994, Taipei) holds an MA in Fine Art from Chelsea College of Arts, University of the Arts London.
Working across painting, sculpture, and spatial installation, his practice explores the interplay of fluidity and directionality within the interrelations of body, time, and environment. He is committed to expanding the language of painting into three-dimensional space, transforming it into a field that embraces movement, tension, and transformation.
Deeply influenced by Queer Phenomenology, he deconstructs perception and reconstructs form from a queer phenomenological perspective to investigate the existential tensions embedded in lived experience. His metaphor—“canvas as skin, frame as bone, pigment as blood”—weaves bodily experience, spatial perception, and formal language into poetic narratives of contemporary existence.
He received the Chelsea Arts Club Trust Materials & Research Award in 2022 and the Emerging Artist Award from Taiwan’s Ministry of Culture in 2024. That same year, he was shortlisted in the sculpture category of the Da Dun Fine Arts Exhibition. In 2025, he was invited by the Lian Museum in Hangzhou, China, as its first artist-in-residence and held his debut solo exhibition, Whispering Hues, in Taiwan.
蔡亞克(Dirk Tsai),1994年生於台北,畢業於英國倫敦藝術大學切爾⻄藝術學院,取得純藝術碩士學位。其創作橫跨繪畫、雕塑與空間裝置領域,核心關注「流動性」與「方向性」在身體、時間與環境中的交互關係,並致力於推動繪畫語彙於三維空間中的轉化與擴張。
作品深受《酷兒現象學》啟發,透過感知拆解與形式重構,以酷兒視角探討生命經驗的存在張力。他以「畫布為皮膚、框架為骨骼、顏料為血液」為創作隱喻,藉此將身體經驗、空間感知與形式語言交織為具詩意的當代敘事。
2022年獲切爾⻄藝術俱樂部信託基金材料與研究獎;2024年返台後獲文化部新興藝術家獎,同年入選大敦美展雕塑類入圍。2025年受中國杭州漣美術館邀請,成為該館首位駐館創作藝術家;同年於台灣舉辦首場創作個展〈靜色微光〉。

|STATEMENT|
I am drawn to the instability of form and the subtle friction between body, space, and environment that gives rise to emotional tension. Through sculptural painting and the construction of non-rectangular canvases, I seek to break the conventional boundaries of painting—liberating it from the wall into space, where it becomes a multidimensional vessel that holds movement, flux, and transformation.
My works are often composed of assembled, misaligned, and flowing forms that preserve a sense of breath between gaps and disturbances. I explore the temporality embedded in memory and experience—its pauses, flows, cycles, and endings—to reveal the dynamic qualities that exist within stillness. In viewing, form, light, and memory merge, refract, and delay one another, like a sequence of static yet continuous frames.
Continuing to employ traditional painting materials as my core language, using them to blur the boundary between painting and installation. This act of blurring is not only a formal experiment but also a reflection of the porous and transformative relationship between self and world. Through spatial fragmentation, the melting of memory, and the undulation of time, I search for new ways of perceiving the world. Each person’s shape is formed through collision with the world—always unfinished. Painting and body remain in vibration, open, and continually becoming.
我關注形式的不穩定性,以及身體、空間與環境之間的微妙摩擦所引發的情感張力。透過雕塑式繪畫與非矩形畫布的組構,我嘗試打破繪畫既有邊界,將其從牆面解放至空間之中,使之成為能容納流動、游移與變動的多維容器。
我的創作常以拼湊、錯位與流線的形體組構而成,在不穩定的排列中保留空隙與擾動之間的持續呼吸。透過記憶與經歷所蘊涵的時間性,去解構其停滯、流動、循環與終結的狀態。以此探討我們生活中看似靜態但動態的特徵,呈現它們的持續和中斷,在觀看的過程裡,形體、光線與記憶相互滲透、折射與延遲,如同捕捉每一秒靜態畫面的連續關係。
我持續以傳統繪畫媒材為核心語言,探索並模糊繪畫與裝置之間的界限。「模糊」的行為對我而言不僅是形式實驗,更象徵個體與世界之間的滲透與轉化。透過空間的割裂、 記憶的融化與時間的起伏,去探索一種全新的觀察世界的方法。每個人的形狀是在和世界的碰撞當中形成,而都在未竟之中。繪畫與身體一同保持顫動、開放,並持續生成。
|EDUCATION|
2023 MA Fine Art, Chelsea College of Arts, University of the Arts London, London, UK
|EXPERIENCE|
AWARDS
2024
・Art Taipei - New Artist Awardee, Taipei, TW
・The 29th DA DUN Fine Arts Exhibition of Taichung City, Sculpture Section, Selected, Taichung, TW
2022
・MA Materials and Research Award, Chelsea Arts Club Trust, London, UK
ARTIST RESIDENCY
2025
・LIAN Gallery, Hangzhou, CN
SOLO EXHIBITION
2025
・Whispering Hues, Vine Gallery, Hsinchu, TW
2024
・ART TAIPEI 2024, Taipei World Trade Centre Hall 1, Taipei, TW
GROUP EXHIBITION
2025
・The Blooming Dartemoor, Lian Gallery, Hangzhou, CN
・Natural World, Chelsea Art Club, London, UK
・Art Future 2025, Grand Hyatt, Taipei, TW
2024
・29th DA DUN Fine Arts Exhibition, Dadun Culture Centre, Taichung, TW
・Table Fable, Salisbury House, London, UK
・Echoes of Entanglement, L’ART, London, UK
・A Conversation with Water, Hypha Studios Stratford, London, UK
2023
・Emerging Artist Exhibition, TEAM LEWIS Foundation, London, UK
・The Hidden Manifesto, Gallery 46, London, UK
・Drunk, The Grosvenor Pub, London, UK
・Whatcha Lookin Art?, Cookhouse, London, UK
・Little Show, Cookhouse, London, UK
2022
・Who Are You - The Evolution of Identity in Britain, Triangle, London, UK
・XYZ, Cookhouse, London, UK
・Between Paper and a Place, Lungley Gallery, London, UK
・ As SLATE, Triangle, London, UK
・I’M IN IT, SafeHouse, London, UK
・Nexus, Triangle, London, UK
2021
・Solstice, Triangle, London, UK
