Here at WoWasis, we’ve found great art in so many far-flung areas of the globe that seemingly nothing surprises us anymore. Artists and artisans can’t create without that secret sauce called “artistic temperament,” so they live where they want and damn all converntions. Which brings us to Kan Hsin-Yi of Taiwan. He lives in a town so remote that it’s not even a town, and you have to literally stumble across his JOKI CoffeeShop-ArtGallery way out east on Taiwan’s central shore, along the magnificent East Coast National Scenic Area.

Kan does both free-standing sculpture and sculptural furniture, but the latter that impressed us. Whimsical, well-crafted and unique in terms of materials, Kan makes art you can sit on or at, and the influences seem to be many. There’s the abstract quality of Ernst, references to Surrealism (his Hualien stones are reminiscent of Dali’s loaves of bread), and an anthropomorphic quality to many of his more compelling pieces. His preferred materials include a smooth beach stone commonly found in this area of taiwan, bronze, copper, and terrific selection of lovely woods. And he works them all together, with an eye to balance and a nod to humor. His sculptural art and furniture is quite varied, far more so than is representated by the pix in this post.

So how do you see his work? He’s got a website (see below), but good luck if you don’t read Chinese. Or you can take the plunge and visit his studio in Taiwan. A layover in Taipei isn’t going to help much,  you’ve got to take a day just to get down there. But that studio’s worth visiting, because there’s some exceptional material there. Below, you have his address and GPS coordinates. Because you’d never associate his building as a gallery from the outside, we’ve included a picture of that, too, as well as GPS coordinates so you can make this artistic scavenger hunt a successful one.

JOKI
No.3 Shihmen, Fongbin Township
Hualien County
Taiwan (R.O.C .) 97792
Tel: (886) 3-878-1206
www.joki.com.tw
GPS: N23°31.363’  E121°30.165’