Taiyen Biotech art
So how did the idea of making sculptures from salt emerge?
“Taiyen Biotech works with resources from the ocean,” says vice president Bobby Chen. After privatization, the company diversified and branched out into cultural undertakings. Salt is important in Chinese culture, bringing good fortune, so Taiyen Biotech decided to work with renowned sculptor Luo Guangwei to develop salt sculptures.
Taiyen Biotech has launched three series of salt sculptures to date: classical Chinese zodiac signs, the Boutique Collection, and Culture and Creation. The works include the Jadeite Cabbage, pixiu (a Chinese mythical hybrid creature), the wind-lion god, the 12 Chinese zodiac signs, and the Bodhisattva Guanyin.
To manage the creative side of the business, the Taiyen Museum was established in one of the company’s salt plants in Tongxiao Township, Miaoli County. Lin Xihong, a manager at the plant, points out that the museum has been attracting an average of 300,000-plus visitors annually since it opened in December 2011.
Salt sculptures are the main attractions of the museum’s displays. One of the teachers of salt sculpture at the museum, Liu Suyan, says that salt blocks (originally produced as animal feed supplements) were utilized as carving material in the past, but they weren’t really suitable and the quality of the sculptures suffered as a result. So these days Taiyen Biotech employs refined salt bound with a unique Japanese compound as a material for sculptures.
The process of creating a salt sculpture is quite complex. As well as the creative inspiration necessary for any artwork, the process includes carving the form, making the molds and melting and mixing the salt with the Japanese binder under pressure at high temperatures. Then the mixture is poured into molds, and after removal, the work is finished off, painted and coated with a protective layer. The entire process involves no less than a dozen manual operations.
Liu also teaches salt painting at the museum, which has in fact become one of the venue’s greatest attractions.
They use salt rejected from the refining process, adding food colorings to create multicolored salt. “The skills required are similar to those of sand painting,” explains Liu as she demonstrates her technique. With some degree of skill, adding colored salt layer by layer, one can easily create a salt painting in a glass.
Taiyen Biotech’s imaginatively designed salt sculptures are always well received by the public.