The exhibition of "Imagination of space: the penetrating sculpture of Xiao ChangZheng" sponsored by the Domestic and Foreign Culture Communication Center is one of the major events of the activities of Taiwan artists in the mainland which have been well-organized by the center in recent years. It will play an active role in promoting the cultural communication and development across the straits.

Xiao Changzheng was born in Zhanghua of Taiwan in 1954. In 1977, he graduated from the Sculpture Department of Taiwan Academy of Arts. In 1986 he went to France for further study, after that he acted as the artistic advisor of Taiwan Jinbao Mountain, responsible for the artistic design of the whole garden, and created many sculptures that were perpetually erected in the garden. In 1997, he was invited to Guilin of Guangxi province to inaugurate the "Yuzi Paradise", which is regarded as the Artistic Parthenon of Contemporary Chinese Sculpture. He has devoted all his attentions and energy to the artistic development and cultural communication of the contemporary sculpture and architecture for China, and especially for both sides across the Taiwan Strait.

His nearly 20 years of practice in designing artistic garden has endowed him with a unique space experience that makes him different from those common sculptors. His long time exposure to mountains and forests, by living in the Jinbao Mountain which faces the open sea against the backdrop of mountains in the north of Taiwan and working in the picturesque sceneries of Guilin, he has enabled himself profound understandings about nature.

As the elitist of Taiwan's mid-age sculptors, he has created with all his life-time energy the series works "My Forest", whose main raw materials has been specially selected from such modeling ingredients as the branched, seeds, flowers, fruits, stems and rootstocks of the forest, in this way he delves into the original forms of life and the memories of growing changes in the elapsing of time.

In his works, he transforms himself into his creations, realizing the releasing and satisfaction of aesthetic free expressions in the imaginative games of replacement and repeated projections. The spirit of nature, which is essence of the ancient Chinese art, has been reincarnated in the modern language of sculptures.

However, Xiao Changzheng does not want to stay at the starting points, his rather exciting and active thoughts have kept him at trying more new ideas. What is put on display this time is the concrete practices of his experiments. By cutting the plane of the exhibition hall randomly into various facets, he created folding three dimensional spaces, such as diamonds, triangle cones, columns and other basic geometrical formations.

Numerous cut planes support or run through each other to form a combination of larger space, which further develop into arts of interior design or architectural modeling. From the ceiling to the interior or exterior of walls and to the floor etc, the whole formation combines to become the a stereoscopic structure, among which the small basic geometric formations and the ceiling, the floor and walls were all transformed with materials such as wood, stone or glass etc to enrich the language of space exploitation.

Such kind of creative concept is in fact the reflection of the artist's background, and the abstract exertion of his experience in the architectural designing of Guilin Yuzi Paradise. In Yuzi Paradise, he has designed various spectacular architectures which are full of beauties of sculpture modeling and seamless blending with the natural environments. It is safe to say that "Penetrating sculpture" is the combination of sculpture and architecture. It is not only the new starting point for a new round of creative experimentation for the artists, but provides conducive development possibility for the exploitation of modern Chinese sculpture.