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.
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 – to integrate, transgress and disarrange.”
Wu Jian’an’s work visually creates a heightened tension between physiology and culture, science and mythology. In his Infinite Paintings series, such a tension projects itself onto the visual sensory dimension represented by stimulating colors, odd shapes, elevated density and rhythm, catching the audiences’ eyes with its infinite details and holding their attention for a while. In terms of optical nerve, the paintings bear a resemblance to scientific images, such as color blindness test charts or Google’s DeepMind image generation. From the perspective of traditional aesthetics, the separated details that go beyond the whole structure appear to be fragmented, inorganic, inconsistent, non-structural, and as if in a state of existence having no end. All of his, perhaps, explains the reason for the naming of Infinite Paintings.
At the same time, the tension projects itself onto myths and psychological archetypes where monsters, heroes, killings, and fights take shape. Once these images coming into view, the audiences seek to sustain a balance between the nuances and the integrated whole, moving constantly between the visual nervous system and the visual thinking strategies and thus allowing their senses and sensibilities to challenge and confront each other. In this sense, Wu Jian’an’s work has opened up a place for debate, which enables the audiences to perceive the infinity of “eyes” and “hearts” in the process of constantly switching between vision and illusion.
Bordercrossing: Possibilities and Interactions
Yuz museum, Shanghai
3 September - 8 October, 2023
