Born in 1974, Philip Mantofa's early life was filled with violence and blasphemy. He started his journey of faith when he was 18 and has been experiencing radical transformation ever since. After graduated from Columbia Bible College in Canada, he embarked his calling in his country, Indonesia, and serving the community with all his talent. His influence reaches far beyond his homeland as he travels the globe changing spiritual climates everywhere. The dreams and visions he shared had excited many people ‘s minds, especially the visions of Heaven and Hell. Not until recently in 2014 has he decided to paint some of those dreams and depict what he has seen on canvases. Mantofa first painted at his age of 6 and even achieved excellence in art competitions. However, he never thought of being an artist until his 40 when he realized that painting is the best way to keep as well as widely spread his dreams and visions carrying powerful messages that may positively affect people’s life. Therefore, Mantofa took up his brush and began to share with others his spiritual dreams and visions through painting until now. Mantofa cooperated with Artrue to have his first global solo exhibition “Visions from Above” in Taipei in August, 2015 as well as its following exhibition at M Art Center in Shanghai in March, 2016, in which he would display about 16 pieces of painting. His bold strokes, vibrant colors and richly layered...
M Art Centre is happy to present Pan Xi's Solo Exhibition " Concealed." The exhibition is from December 12, 2015 to February 11, 2016. " Concealed" is the artist's recent thoughts -- concealed, hidden, puzzling, discovered, and released. The artist walks independently along a path between the Chinese sensibility and Western thought. Most of the works from " concealed" are Shui-mo (water and ink) on silk. The images are subtle and restraining, sharp and pointed. Pan Xi, born in Wenzhou, Zhejiang, graduated with an MFA from Surikov Academy of Art (Oil Painting Department) in Moscow, Russia in 1999, currently lives and works in Shanghai, China.
The “Off the Shore” Project is an annual periodic project run by M Art Center and young artists, which provide a platform for artists’ creative thinking and idea collision. It invites them to bring their art languages into the story of curating and explore new direction of art in the contemporary context basing on artists’ experiences. In each collision, this project openly discusses the nature of art with artists in the liberal atmosphere. And also accompany them to start their trip of the project. The list of artists who confirmed their participation: WU Ding, SHEN Linghao, SU Yuhan, LIN Qing, ZHONG Yunshu, XI Xi, WANG Xin, ZHU Ziqian, GAO Ruyun, REN Jie, CHEN Xiao, LIU Yue The “Off the Shore” Project in 2015 invites 12 artists to present their first exhibition in this series. The creative medias include photography, sculpture, installation and easel painting. As the opening exhibition of the project with a storyline of Nocturne, artists will present their rich experiences telling personal secrecy in a metaphorical way. The project invites all the artists participated into group dialogues in order to let them know each other’s art works properly and find their similarities and difference of thought and sight while they talking about starting point of creation and logic. Therefore, the story of curating in this exhibition will be completed.
M Art Center is pleased to present a new exhibition “A Round Sun A Dot”, which is the first solo show of Lingjie Wang and Jingfang Hao in China. The young couple is based in France and usually focuses their works on the nature. And nature is their starting point to explore the basic concept of “things” and the relationships with human. The close observation of the nature, also further study and development of the characteristics and the techniques of the materials have been wonderfully demonstrated through their works in space installation, paintings, videos and sculptures. The exhibition will be open at 3 p.m. on 11th July until 10th September. The curator Hélène Doub once describes the artists and their works as “excellent alliance of contraries” (exaltante alliance des contraires). Sharing a background of engineering, the two artists, on one hand, are interested in western conceptual art, and strongly attracted and influenced by its ideology, which is a mix of intuition and reasoning. On the other, they have inherited the sensitive approach and poetic expression rooted in the concepts of “somethingness” and “nothingness” of Chinese philosophy. All these have made every piece of their works show a principal dialogue (un principe dialogique) between the two extremes, the reasoning perception and the accurate arrangement – it is conceptual, yet emotional; natural, beautiful and mysterious, but as complicated as science. As for the theme of the exhibition, the artists give their explanation as follows: look...
The renowned Korean artist Lee Jaehyo’s solo exhibition “The Stone” is to be on show from May 16, 2015 to June 15,2015. The show will be composed by three parts of artworks including spatial installation, sculpture and photography. Lee is deeply influenced by Earthworks and his works are natural and unaffected, nourished by Land art, Environmental Art, Eco-Art, Installations and Minimalism. In this show, while using ordinary rocks and branches as his main creation objects, he widely adopts artistic techniques like suspension, stack and alignment, which makes the raw materials mark a mysterious temperament. Integrating consummate skills and philosophical thoughts, his works are not only peaceful and elegant, but also reflective of the author’s quest for the unknown world. Moreover, the artistic style of Lee Jaehyo is “repetition” and “persistence” which requires a good deal of time and energy. While natural rocks seem pointless, if were piled together, the combination may convey certain meaning. Such is the same with Lee’s work for the creative process means even more than the author’s creative intention. No wonder he wrote in his work notes that “it may be those that make a hard living who make this world a beautiful place.” Lee Jaehyo, born in 1965 in Hapchen, Korea, graduated from Hong-ik University in 1992 and has held 42 solo exhibitions up till 2015. Currently he is living and working in Korea.
M Art Center is thrilled to present you the solo exhibition of our artist Ma lu, A slip of abstraction, from March 21th to April 20th, 2015. Ma Lu’s creations have their origins from abstract expressionism, in a way not pursuing analytical method of the western abstraction research. His works do not emphasize geometrical relations on canvas like Mondrian and Malevich. Nor do they reveal some hidden libido like drip paintings by Jackson Pollock. His philosophy seems to be a way in-between, one which is more related to the physical experience of normal people. His works go beyond the simple form and shape of things around us,but they express his feeling towards them and his physical experience of them. When Ma lu found the corner stone of his artistic expression, one that lay in the emotional transformation deeply rooted within him, peace is found in his heart. His works convey not only the image of a theme, but also a purified whole reflection of reality, with similar magic of music and of poetry. Whatever and however it is that he paints: heaven or earth, man or animal, big or small, figurative or abstract, all is important, with no difference, free from the other in its own right, yet they infiltrate into each other’s world with comments and remarks, where a micro and a macro view share the same expression. In fact, Ma lu has no intention to be neither abstract...
M Art Center is thrilled to introduce that Approaching Zero, the first solo exhibition of the young artist GAO Ruyun will be presented from November 29, 2014 to December 31, 2014. The show is composed by three parts of artworks including oil on canvas, space installation and window display. Over the last three years, GAO Ruyun has been thinking over the various movements of lines in the space. Approaching Zero describes a basic concept in mathematics, a kind of motion which is approaching to zero infinitely. A motion so slow as to stillness, a tension permeating the space. In this show, GAO uses his simple techniques to express the nature of mechanical movements, attempting to explore their possibilities in time and space. GAO Ruyun, born in Shanghai in 1988, is studying Public Art in East China Normal University. Now he lives and works in Shanghai.
Someone asked me once, as we were standing here in this space: "Do you have a dream?" "Yes!" I replied. "What is your dream?" "You are standing in my dream." Looking back on the seven years since the beginning of M Art Centre, I am very grateful. Now we begin another seven years; we will move forward, do what we enjoy, and dream together.... This September, M art center is embracing its 7th anniversary. Looking back, the 7 years as if it were 7 days. On September 13th 2014, The Seven Days will be presented in M Art Center. Employing its narrative line from the Genesis, the gallery becomes a micro-world. Works starts from light of day one to rainbow of day seven from the 12 artists. The gallery is enlightened to trace back to the original creation and to represent it in the context of contemporary art. The 7th day marks not the end but a new journey we will embark on with every one of you.
Nail in Wood and Wood in Nail Until recently, my work has been about combining wood with nails or steel bars, integrating them into geometrical shapes such as a sphere, a hemisphere or a cylinder. Whenever I do this, one of my troubles is keep nails and bolts out of sight. On the contrary, I now put an emphasis only on nails. I drive countless nails into wood, bend them, grind them, and then burn the wood, making nails protrude and at the same time blackening its growth ring and natural color. Then glittering metallic nails on the black charcoal become ever more conspicuous. Through this process, I draw a picture on wood using nails. It may be those that make a hard living who make this world a beautiful place. I certainly do not have the power to make it beautiful. I just hope to make those things that are seen beautiful. It may be a rusty bent nail. If you take a close look at it, however, you'll find how beautiful it is.
M Art Center
1F, Building 2, 50 MoGanShan Rd.
Tel: +86 21 6299 6610
Email: martcenter@vip.163.com
Open in every Trusday to Saturday, from 10:30 to 18:30
