Social media info: About the Exhibition

Foreword
Nature, as a medium, is not only the flowers, birds and trees of the external world, but also a reflection of the profound interaction between artists and the external environment. In this exhibition, three artists use natural plants and landscapes as their medium of entry into the painting, and through their different working methods and choices of expression materials, they present different paths of reproducing nature, as well as coordinates the distance between each of them and nature.

Not being satisfied with the reproduction of the reality of nature is another point of convergence between the three artists. Facing nature but not ’copying‘ it is obviously a great difficulty. For an artist who has gone through years of systematic modeling training, trying to simply imitate the effects of nature in front of him through light, shadow and modeling techniques is really unable to mobilize the freshness of the work. At this point, subjective imagination becomes an exciting remedy, but unfortunately, paintings that rely purely on imagination can lead one to a hollow, empty state. Here comes the question, how to balance the tedium of depiction and reproduction with the emptiness of imagination? How can an artist's works develop new methods and imaginations step by step under the guidance of concrete materials (real world) and sensations (experiences), and finally construct their own 'essence'? In this exhibition, we try to present three different paths and look forward to sharing them with you.

———Studio Gallery


About the Artist

Shi Xiang, born in 1987 in Tieling, Liaoning Province, graduated from the Fourth Studio of the Oil Painting Department of the Central Academy of Fine Arts with a Master's Degree in 2016, and now lives and works in Beijing. In his creations, he continues the previous Chinese artist's thinking about still life, and maximally dissolves the color, replacing it with a renewed cognition of the object, and an understanding of the shape, volume, and even the essence of the object, using the most simple materials and methods to dig into the most easily overlooked aspects of everyday still life.

Yang Yijia is a visual artist based in Shanghai. She holds a MFA Degree from Slade School of Fine Art at University College London, and a BA degree from Chelsea College of Arts and Design. Her practice expanded from painting to installation and media works. While addressing serial questions around the boundary of painting, she uses dreams and landscape perception from traveling experience as the inspiration. Her variations in use of materials and brushstrokes seek for a poetic space on the canvas between reality of dreaminess.

Zhai Xuanhong was born in Changde, China, in 1987. He graduated from the Oil Painting Department of Sichuan Fine Arts Institute in 2012, and currently works and lives in Shanghai. Zhai's creative practice combines his own life experience and constantly develops a unique visual language. Traditional oil painting on canvas, LED light box, "brush strokes" that simulate the shape of LED lamp beads, "additive" superposition, "subtractive" monochrome, etc. He never defines his work with categories or materials but enjoys the state of perceiving and producing with his hands.