PIFO Gallery is proud to present solo project of WU Jian'an for Insight section at Art Basel in Hong Kong (Booth 1C29) from 21 to 25 March, 2023. Chinese artist WU Jian'an will show his well-konw works - "Incarnation" series and "500 Brushstrokes" series.
The artistic logic and visual creativity of Wu Jian'an are rooted in his use of scenes that seem distant from contemporary life to express eternal threads that run through the history of human civilization. He awakens the hidden and subtle yet grand and majestic subconscious that lies within every human heart, inspiring the viewer to reflect on human nature and the times in which we live. As Professor Wu Hong from the University of Chicago said, "Wu's imagination has always operated simultaneously in multiple dimensions. Likewise, his works simultaneously expand the viewer's artistic imagination in various directions. He travels between words and images while adding a layer of storytelling above figuration and abstraction... He freely traverses temporal divides, instantaneously taking viewers from today's world back to mysterious primeval times. His art spans various media and styles: painting, sculpture, paper cut, and installation, all of which provide him with a varied vocabulary yet also arouse his desire to cross boundaries–tointegrate, transgress and disarrange."
INCARNATION
The Incarnation series is highly representative of Wu's work. The elements within come from his large scale 2011 installation Seven Layered Shells. In Seven Layered Shells, Wu Jian'an created 186 different forms, some coming from the mysterious ancient Chinese scripture The Classic of Mountains and Seas. He set out to create 「portraits」 for these grotesque and exiled monsters, while combining them with his other creations including satirical cartoons, physical embodiment of slangs, elements from Christianity, Buddhism and Hinduism, graffiti, T-shirt designs and cartoon characters. You would discover that something extremely simple suddenly becomes a very complex work of art, as these bodies of varying sizes and layers are staring back at us with countless pairs of eyes, while going about their own business and ignoring our presence, opening up to an unthinkable cultural externality within the confines of their physical likeness...
Wu Jian'an takes the elements that make up Seven Layered Shells as his 「alphabet」 to create this new Incarnation series. In these new works, thousands of miniature images are overlaid upon each other to create a complex and magnificent visual texture. He attempts to break this formulaic relationship between the individual and the collective: The individual coalesces within a condensed and chaotic intertwining formation to an ambiguous ensemble, whose colorful liveliness extends beyond any pre-destination, but rather growth of a self-determined individual.
Either in reflecting an understanding of time and space through the Chinese zodiac or interpreting ancient Greek vase paintings and narrating stories of heroism, the 「Incarnation」 series is firmly grounded in the traditions of folk craft, classic text, literati painting and the history of Western modernist art, which gradually expand into a complex, distinctive system of creative thinking and expression. The construction of the system is driven by innovation in visual approaches that retain the singular sharpness of vision and the aesthetic appeal of the artworks. Furthermore, while facilitating the incorporation of a sense of narrative into the linguistic system of the works, the system appears to be reconfirming the expression and construction of a distinctive worldview, constantly further exploring the fundamental principles of visual perception and craftsmanship.
500 BRUSHSTROKES
Bringing together ink on paper and paper-cut collage, and individual creation and social participation, the 500 Brushstrokes series is one of Wu Jian'an's most recognised art projects in recent years.
The works from this series resemble abstract ink and wash paintings and/or gestural paintings, where long lines, folds, ripples, arcs, and a variety of undefinable splash trajectories and erasure appear to be moving around. By competing for and sharing the same space on paper, all of them constitute an energy field in which various orders intersect and interplay in a visual manner.
To tell the truth, none of the elements of the paintings is a result of 「painting」 worked on paper. As the scale is not fixed and static, a single work of art may contain dozens or even hundreds of paper-cutting collages that are independent of each other. As found in the color and ink of the brushstrokes, the traces of dripping, splashing, 「flying white」(fei bai), and soaking, the process of cutting and carving has been carefully preserved. Crucial to the assembling of those components is that Wu Jian'an has devoted meticulous attention to the positional relationship, that is, the relationship is not only about the positioning of top, bottom, left, and right but also about the overlapping, interspersing, and intertwining of the brushstrokes with the latter actively seeking to expand into the sharp edges of the papers. That being said, the three-dimensional space and material reality have effectively involved themselves in the composition of the 「plane」.
At the same time, the overall structure offers endless possibilities for change due to the fact that an addition of a new brushstroke can rapidly change the already meticulously developed rhythm where the pattern of minor changes can determine the overall effect just like ripples expand across the water. Therefore, the artworks from the series can be said to be a combination of feelings and critical thinking, meticulous planning and spontaneous decision, which are created via a slow, difficult process marked by loneliness even though the images eventually present a sense of joyfulness and effortlessness.
WU Jian'an
Wu Jian'an was born in 1980 in Beijing, China. He is currently a professor and Ph.D. degree tutor at the Central Academy of Fine Arts.
