This group exhibition is accomplished under the planning of Art China of Britain and the associating of The Print Studio at Cambridge and St. Barnabus Press.The twelve artists in this exhibition bring us spectacular visions that have illustrated the prospect of engraving art in Britain today. These art pieces shown are created in the late five years, conveying the artists’ address on the mental experience aroused by social evolutions, have included the technical categories of woodcut, etching, Carborundum, linocut, screen print, lithograph and combined techniques. All vibrant in the field of engraving art, part of the artists had joined the faculty of art academies while the others are pursuing art as full-time, of whom, for instance, Anthony Green, an intimate to the Royal Art Association, and Stanly Donwood, a vanguard among the artists today on canvas and engravings, whose works are well acclaimed in an international scale. For the curators of this exhibition Kip Gresham and James Hill, their perennial cooperation with distinguished artists all over the world had been an eternal impetus for the development of this art form in UK. Their somehow abstract genres have witnessed with them the vicissitude of our habitat. It is our sincere hope a more legible social environment could be found in the images, so do the British engravings today.
The birth span of six youth artists of Shanghai Oil Painting & Sculpture Institute is from 1971 to 1983. Emerson said, if a man want to choose a age to be born, he will choose a variational one. During this age, all the experience is full with fear and hope. They have much experience in China of their own. The artworks deliver their past and the future.
Contemporary art is conceived in the modern context. However, with hardly any similarity to fads and fashion, it has the prospect to be handed down as classics with its unique aesthetics. Though it is universally acknowledged that the once prevailing western post-modernism art had now tucked into pure canvas form, it had on the other hand reflected the demands of art itself to regress to its essence rather than expanding into more vastly varied forms. This choice is believed to have been made after careful consideration to refine art from our culture and the artists’ self-consciousness following their free-wills and sticking to their common idealism. This is the portrait of the environment for the artists’ creation, where modernity is intensively depicted. The abstractionists in this room has been weaving in the patterns their personal style and feelings in modern times. The farther their mind leave what they saw, the more profound their art deliver what they perceive. Finally, spiritual dimensions are developed; the poetry of abstraction is harvested as one after another conception had been established, emitting the warmth of conciliation for the upright and the stoical. We firmly believe that abstract art is bound to be accepted to larger population with the time moving forward. Nevertheless hard work would be indispensable with to communicate academic aesthetics and popular taste. On such basis, these five abstractionists in this room had eloquently testified this point, reflecting their inimitable explorations on Chinese...
“Vase, rather than vase” is the main theme of a series of silk-screen printmaking Lu Zhiping has created in recent years. The internal essence of aesthetics and ideal of contemporary art behind the theme cover the artistic concept and pursuit of creation in all his artworks created in recent years. His printmaking series such as “Water Hometown”, “Archaeology” could be named with other similar titles, for he would like to present some historic and realistic images through the articles characterized by contemporary aesthetics by means of deliberate subversion, deconstruction, combination and restructuring. “Vase, rather than vase, uncommon vase”, the vases in Lu Zhiping’s artworks are not those ancient boutiques which we appreciate, however, they serve as traditional elements and factors integrated into the atmosphere of contemporary creation to seek the ideal convergence with the beauty of modernism, create brand-new constitutional logic and present artistic explicit mode featuring contemporary sentiment. Here traditional constitutional factors have been stimulated and obtained continual extension and expansion while inherent essence of beauty has been extracted and enhanced, thus finding companion in the new field of aesthetics to be transformed into brand-new inspiration featuring “image-oriented” philosophy as well as symbolic metaphor. Many traditional historic art symbols have consciously been injected into Lu Zhiping’s artworks, for example, there are monster pattern, dragon & phoenix pattern and thunder pattern on bronze wares, net pattern, string pattern and falling curtain pattern on pottery in “Vase, rather than vase” series,...
Perhaps because of the edification of the life in the great desert of north-west which is full of poetic quality, Li-lei has another gift which is different from those the Shanghai native artists have. Li-lei spent his childhood without any sorrow and anxiety in the valley of Huang-shui, Qinghai Province, and the customs and influences handed down from the ancient civilization of Ma-jia Cave nourished his immature heart. It’s the primitive culture and the ancient legend of plateau which are straightforward, simple and unsophisticated, as well as mysterious that forms the significant childhood complex. The sense of vitality and the worship of the primeval ecology have been controlling potentially his thought and his creation. Many years ago, when Li-lei was a youth, he even went into the trumpet shell gorge (Hai-luo gou), Gong-ga snow-mountain, Sichuan Province lonely to experience the value of life in the situation of alone and with no help by breaking into depopulated zone in glacier gorge. Recalling this experience, he stated, “visiting trumpet shell gorge for me is not only a magnificent tour of life, but also a experience of soul cleansing…… Whenever the Gong-ga snow mountain appears in my dream, I would arise spontaneously endless joy, and I would make a consider quietly and serenely what’s the meaning of life……” Therefore, we can conclude that the plateau which is thousands miles away is the origin of Li-lei’s poetic abstract works which produced in the survival...
ShContemporary will be held in Shanghai Exhibition Center on Sep10th---13th, 2008. ShContemporary serves as the only mature, top and comprehensive international art fair that provides the public with information of Asian art market and plays the role as cultural bond for artworks of western artists. Over one hundred galleries from more than 20 countries will participate in the fair. Top galleries from Asia-Pacific region, America and Europe will also take part in this top international art fair in Asia-Pacific region. The cooperation between M Art Center and ShContemporary is aimed to promote art exchange, prosperity and development of artwork market, keep pace with time, continuously enhance innovation, strive to explore the market and commonly form the platform of communication and trade, thus serving as cultural bridge between the public and art, even between Shanghai and the rest of the world.
In the wake of holding solo exhibition named “West-East ”in Shanghai Art Museum in 2005, Richard Texier enjoyed high popularity and concern of artistic enthusiasts in Shanghai and even China. In the past three years, he has been committed to creation and exploration of language of painting and sculpture with great concentration based on perseverance for art. As a result, his works were more mature that distinctive personality could be found in the expression of his works. During these 3 years, with the different exhibitions and art events in Shanghai cooperated with M Art Center, Richard Texier was better known and appreciated by Chinese professional art collectors. With the invitation of M Art Center, Richard Texier will soon present his latest artistic works created in France and share his recent artistic achievements with more Chinese audience.
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