- Liu Wei│Works on paper
- 2015|04.11 - 05.03
- Opening|04.11 4pm
- Lin & Lin Gallery
An Alternative Elegy of Youth – The Paper Works of Liu Wei|Chia Chi Jason Wang
When the Chinese curator Li Xianting first promoted the "cynical realism" movement in 1991, the reputation of the young artist Liu Wei (born in 1965) took flight, and he subsequently established a name in the overseas art world. His images possessed vivid forms that were highly visually identifiable. His "cynical realism" quickly evolved into a graphical style, toward which many other artists in China flocked. After 1995, despite "political pop" having become the new trend in Chinese contemporary art, Liu Wei quietly dispensed with portraits of political leaders as his subject matter.
Iconoclasm or anti-aesthetics has long been Liu Wei's consistent creative orientation. Stressing, "I paint my heart with my hands", he expresses his own sensitive consciousness of time through the tactile feel and brushstrokes in his paintings, manifested as a rebellion of form that is deliberately different, and even fearlessly "awkward" and "ugly" so as to offend the viewer's vision. Over ten works by Liu are presented in this exhibition, in the medium of ink on paper. Their images include human figures, landscapes, flowers and birds. Quite a few of these works evoke associations with traditional Chinese ink painting, yet in reality it is difficult to comprehend them in terms of the brush-and-ink genealogy of art history. Most significantly, this batch of artworks seems to allude to the artist's own recent life experiences and feelings.
While Liu Wei intriguingly subverts the traditional aesthetic paradigm, he also uses these paintings as vehicles to reveal his inner thoughts. Each picture, as complex as a tapestry, composed of ink in a single color, seems to be a paean to the flourishing vitality of youth, but also brims with an absurd, bizarre atmosphere of imminent death. Angels appear in the shape of skeletons, even hanging from the treetops. Bodies both male and female, with exaggerated symbols of sexuality, stand unabashedly naked, directly and boldly declaring to the viewer the existence of instinct and desire in living beings. Worth noting is that in one painting, with two angel skeletons hanging from a tree set against a background of blooming flowers, Liu Wei scribes four half-visible Chinese characters meaning, "Just do it, you won't die." Forming an ambiguous relationship of juxtaposition with the English phrase "Too young to die", it fills the beholder's mind with question marks.
These paintings on paper by Liu Wei, more than ten in number, do not depict shocking scenes; rather, they reveal a host of troubled, melancholy emotions that surface after death intrudes the mind. In light of this, these recent works may perhaps be seen as an alternative elegy rich in black humor, much in keeping with Liu Wei's personal sardonic tone, touching upon the inescapable subjects of life, such as youth, desire and dying.
When the Chinese curator Li Xianting first promoted the "cynical realism" movement in 1991, the reputation of the young artist Liu Wei (born in 1965) took flight, and he subsequently established a name in the overseas art world. His images possessed vivid forms that were highly visually identifiable. His "cynical realism" quickly evolved into a graphical style, toward which many other artists in China flocked. After 1995, despite "political pop" having become the new trend in Chinese contemporary art, Liu Wei quietly dispensed with portraits of political leaders as his subject matter.
Iconoclasm or anti-aesthetics has long been Liu Wei's consistent creative orientation. Stressing, "I paint my heart with my hands", he expresses his own sensitive consciousness of time through the tactile feel and brushstrokes in his paintings, manifested as a rebellion of form that is deliberately different, and even fearlessly "awkward" and "ugly" so as to offend the viewer's vision. Over ten works by Liu are presented in this exhibition, in the medium of ink on paper. Their images include human figures, landscapes, flowers and birds. Quite a few of these works evoke associations with traditional Chinese ink painting, yet in reality it is difficult to comprehend them in terms of the brush-and-ink genealogy of art history. Most significantly, this batch of artworks seems to allude to the artist's own recent life experiences and feelings.
While Liu Wei intriguingly subverts the traditional aesthetic paradigm, he also uses these paintings as vehicles to reveal his inner thoughts. Each picture, as complex as a tapestry, composed of ink in a single color, seems to be a paean to the flourishing vitality of youth, but also brims with an absurd, bizarre atmosphere of imminent death. Angels appear in the shape of skeletons, even hanging from the treetops. Bodies both male and female, with exaggerated symbols of sexuality, stand unabashedly naked, directly and boldly declaring to the viewer the existence of instinct and desire in living beings. Worth noting is that in one painting, with two angel skeletons hanging from a tree set against a background of blooming flowers, Liu Wei scribes four half-visible Chinese characters meaning, "Just do it, you won't die." Forming an ambiguous relationship of juxtaposition with the English phrase "Too young to die", it fills the beholder's mind with question marks.
These paintings on paper by Liu Wei, more than ten in number, do not depict shocking scenes; rather, they reveal a host of troubled, melancholy emotions that surface after death intrudes the mind. In light of this, these recent works may perhaps be seen as an alternative elegy rich in black humor, much in keeping with Liu Wei's personal sardonic tone, touching upon the inescapable subjects of life, such as youth, desire and dying.