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How East meets West on canvas

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WHAT fascinates me is how contemporary Chinese artists living abroad synthesise East and West,'' says Alice King, owner-manager of Alisan Fine Arts.

''That has been my obsession for the past 10 years and I don't look for just commercial success. For me, an artist's work must have soul.'' Opening at the Prince's Building gallery on Thursday is an exhibition which comfortably satisfies Ms King's criteria: A Taoist Way To Colour featuring recent acrylics by Hsiao Chin.

The son of Hsiao Yo-mei, the celebrated conductor and composer who founded Shanghai's National Conservatory, he grew up in a cultured home and went on to study art in Taiwan.

Hsiao Chin was 14 when he moved there with his parents in 1949. At 21, armed with a fine arts degree, he headed for Barcelona to take up a fellowship from the Spanish Government.

Strength in numbers appealed to this founder-member of Ton Fan, the first group of Chinese painters to promote Chinese abstract art as a movement. In Spain, Hsiao was quickly drawn to the influential Informalism group and in 1961, he co-founded the Punto International Art Movement in Milan.

Now 57 and an Italian citizen, Hsiao can look back on 25 years abroad - several of them spent in Paris, London and New York - and major awards including the Capo d'Orlando Prize, a Gold Medal at the Norwegian International Print Biennale and a First Achievement Award (1989) from Taiwan's Li Chun-sen Foundation of Contemporary Painting.

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