Chinese artists tackle half-remembered history, distant past
2023-06-27 to 2023-08-06
2023-06-27 to 2023-08-06Four modern Chinese artists – Lin Ke, Xiang Kaiyang, Xie Qi and Anna NL Cheung – are participating in a group exhibition titled "The Past Is a Foreign Country," currently underway at the Space and Gallery Association.
The title has been borrowed from L. P. Hartley's novel "The Go-Between," which opens with the sentence, "The past is a foreign country: They do things differently there."
It encapsulates the inherent flaws that run through our memory and history – a distant, invisible, untrustworthy, forgotten past that is only half-remembered at best and purposefully distorted at worst.
The past, as a vessel, is both a historical narrative and a mold that shapes memory.
Work by Xie Qi
The body and portraits have long been dominant motifs in Xie's paintings. Xie bestows warmth of feeling, tension of desire, and tones of sadness on these individuals through her rich imagination and sensitive perception. She extracts quotidian objects from their everyday contexts and places them in a type of mise-en-scene.
As a result, the characters in her works appear alienated on a darker stage. They are removed from reality, exposing their raw nakedness and provoking thoughts about existential aspects. The body hurts and shimmers through the light and ever-overlapping paint.
Xiang's work is based on an intricate synthesis of text and drawing, with a special emphasis on the expressive power of Chinese characters. Xiang's most recent works use numbers as semiotic expressions, masterfully blending symbols to infuse nuanced layers of visual mimesis into his paintings. Xiang's artistic investigation is built on words, phrases, poems and text.
Xiang Kaiyang employs numbers as semiotic expressions in his latest works.
Since 2010, Lin has been using himself as a guinea pig to study computer-age behavioral science.
Lin transforms his laptop into a studio and uses stuff from computer software and the Internet as fodder for his paintings. Exploring the Internet and various applications becomes the catalyst for art creation and self-portraiture. He uses screenshots and screen recording tools to capture operational activity and conceptual images. His work includes installations, images, sound, text, video and computer painting.
Lin Ke draws inspiration from a Chinese actor.
Cheung's primary creative mediums are paintings, mono prints, installations and photography. Her psychogeographic works branch out from typical landscapes, interpreting the sense of daily urban, rural, and social environments through vivid, detached, or contradictory color descriptions.
She is exhibiting two paintings from her "Pengcheng Corner" series, in which she depicts the scene of a specific street corner in Pengcheng, Jiangsu Province, using different color combinations to express her perception of the relationship between light and space.
Her exhibition also includes photography, which captures the public spaces of seven cities, reflecting the local urban form and history.
Cheung constructs a complex urban landscape with a more objective angle, reflecting a sense of alienation. The use of black-and-white photography has obliterated the feeling of time, making it hard to distinguish whether it is sunrise or dusk. The architecture, ecological surroundings, and daily activities in the cityscape are the focal points.
Work by Anna NL Cheung
Exhibition info:
Date: Through August 6, 10am-6:30pm
Venue: Space & Gallery Association (SGA) Shanghai
Address: 3/F, 3 Zhongshan Road E1
中山东一路3号3楼