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THEME: FANTASY

Chen Shijun's distinctive painting style mediates between digital and physical images. The Online Encyclopedia series, for example, takes prosaic images found while browsing online as its source material, and then interprets it through heavy texturing and a nostalgic palette, converting the raw digital image into a final product with an exceptional sense of physicality. Online Encyclopedia: Reality, takes an error message from the website Flickr—a error message reading “This Photo Is Currently Unavailable”—and gives it the texture of a physical artefact. Chen Shijun sources the images in his works from keyword searches on internet search engines, converting the raw image into an oil painting so heavily weathered it seems to bear the mark of time itself.

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  • Online Encyclopedia: True Facts
  • Chen Shijun (b. 1982) was born in Chengdu, Sichuan province, and attended the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute in neighboring Chongqing for his high school, college, and post-graduate education. Deeply steeped in the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute's long and proud oil painting tradition, Chen Shijun developed a style of painting that mediates between digital and physical images while studying at the academy: “Online Encyclopedia: The Real Facts,” for example, takes an error message from the website Flickr—a error message reading “This Photo Is Currently Unavailable”—and gives it the texture of a physical artefact. Chen Shijun sources the images in his works from keyword searches on internet search engines, converting the raw image into an oil painting so heavily weathered it seems to bear the mark of time itself. The internet and its digital realities are a constant presence in his work; the artist describes the internet as not just a portal of information, but the predominant lens through which he perceives the outside world. Recently graduated, Chen Shijun has begun exhibiting on a modest scale within China, his most notable exhibition being “The Way of the Image,” a two-person exhibition with his contemporary Wang Chunli, with whom Chen Shijun shares an alma mater and a studio.

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    CHEN Shijun 陈世君
$35.00
Chen Shijun's distinctive painting style mediates between digital and physical images. The Online Encyclopedia series, for example, takes prosaic images found while browsing online as its source material, and then interprets it through through heavy texturing and a nostalgic palette, converting the raw digital image into a final product with an exceptional sense of physicality. Online Encyclopedia: Daydream, takes an image of late afternoon sun, refracted through a myriad of window panes, as its subject. The painting has a dreamy, nostalgic effect, the sunlight lost in plays of light and shadow just as the mind escapes into absent-minded thought.

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  • Online Encyclopedia: Daydream
  • Chen Shijun (b. 1982) was born in Chengdu, Sichuan province, and attended the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute in neighboring Chongqing for his high school, college, and post-graduate education. Deeply steeped in the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute's long and proud oil painting tradition, Chen Shijun developed a style of painting that mediates between digital and physical images while studying at the academy: “Online Encyclopedia: The Real Facts,” for example, takes an error message from the website Flickr—a error message reading “This Photo Is Currently Unavailable”—and gives it the texture of a physical artefact. Chen Shijun sources the images in his works from keyword searches on internet search engines, converting the raw image into an oil painting so heavily weathered it seems to bear the mark of time itself. The internet and its digital realities are a constant presence in his work; the artist describes the internet as not just a portal of information, but the predominant lens through which he perceives the outside world. Recently graduated, Chen Shijun has begun exhibiting on a modest scale within China, his most notable exhibition being “The Way of the Image,” a two-person exhibition with his contemporary Wang Chunli, with whom Chen Shijun shares an alma mater and a studio.

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    CHEN Shijun 陈世君
$35.00
As the title of the work implies, this teddy bear with a heart-shaped nose and a coy smile appears to be quite peaceful. Upon closer examination, however, a more sinister and disturbing scene unfolds before us. We quickly discover that this cuddly creature is in the midst of pulling the stuffing from its chest. Even more unsettling is the apparent relish with which this act is being undertaken. The bear's focused gaze, rosy cheeks and sly grin all illustrate a degree of amusement. An additional level of tension and disquiet is achieved with the subtle drops of ruby red along the mouth and dotting its paws. This detail further emphasizes the surreal elements of the composition, as this seemingly living, breathing stuffed bear blushes with pleasure.

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  • Peaceful
  • Lili (b. 1982) was born in Chongqing, Sichuan, and graduated from the Sichuan Academy of Fine Arts in 2004. She can be characterized as part of the “Cartoon Generation” of Chinese artists, a group that emerged in Southern China during the latter half of the 1990s. Her subjects are seemingly cute, loveable animals such as teddy bears, bunnies, and birds, however their violent and grotesque actions imbue the work with a menacing air. The dark, ominous tone lurking beneath the surface of her supposedly innocent and playful cartoon depictions create a scene ripe with tension. The flat, simplified style of line drawing and muted color palette offer a stark contrast to the complex psychological drama subtly unfolding within the composition, amplifying the elements of suspense and uncertainty. Her works are reminiscent of artist Yoshimoto Nara (b. 1959), known for his Japanese Pop art era depictions of bleary-eyed, bobble head cartoon children in pastel hues. At first appearing merely grouchy after being awoken from a nap, upon further consideration, the dangerous weapons clutched in their tiny fists and dour expressions spread across their oversized faces are decidedly seething with loathing and aggression. Since 2004 Lili’s work has been exhibited in various spaces around mainland China, as well as further afield in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Brazil, and the United States.

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    LI Li 李丽
$35.00
Zhu Zhiwei’s paintings dwell on the incredible scale of China’s industrialization, and the relationship between modern city-dwellers and the man-made environment that they inhabit. Modern Behemoth No. 1 depicts a multi-tiered, abstracted mass of blackened machinery and its twelve orange inhabitants. The wild brushstrokes that surround this structure convey a sense of wild motion and instability, which is reinforced by the viewer’s low vantage point and the cable swinging from the crane on the right. The dripping streams of black paint give a feeling of gravity and oily grime.

The twelve cartoonish characters are disproportionately large compared to the cranes and superstructure, but their oversize heads give them an infant-like appearance. They frolic about, while some vandalize machinery with glee. They appear to be unaware of the precarious state of the platform, much less its original purpose. The overall impression is that of an unsupervised industrial playground hurtling wildly through space.

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  • Modern Behemoth No. 1
  • Zhu Zhiwei (b. 1983) was born in Chongqing, Sichuan Province, graduating from the oil painting department of the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute in 2007. Encouraged at a young age to pursue his interest in art, Zhu Zhiwei tested into a high school affiliated with the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute when he was a teenager, and continued on for advanced study. His parents' working class background left a profound impact on Zhu Zhiwei, whose works are dominated by the presence of industry. Factories, workshops, and machines make up the backdrop to most of his works, peopled by small, naked chubby human figures, their skin an angry pink. The figures in his works seem equal part cherub, gremlin, and lemming, teeming over the edges of forbidding industrial smoke stacks and production lines. The artist sees cities as the inheritors of industrial civilization, and his works are a whimsical exploration of the industrial landscape as a site of life and livelihood. For a young, emerging artist, Zhu Zhiwei has already shown in moderately within the mainland, and as his practice develops, his profile seems poised to grow.

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    ZHU Zhiwei 朱志伟
$59.00
Luo Fahui is part of the generation of artists who studied fine arts shortly after the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976). His oil paintings, which are characterized by surreal, pearly gray compositions, punctuated by bright splashes of crimson and turquoise, address themes of desire, isolation and violence.

The title of this work refers to ancient poems of mystical excursion, in which a Daoist master is carried off to the realm of the Immortals. These stories were sometimes fantasies of poets who dreamt of escaping conventional society. In Chinese mythology, the Immortals’ preferred mode of transportation was a fantastical red-crowned crane; mortals who achieved immortality were similarly carried off by one of these creatures. The Immortals prized rare magical peaches, which conferred 1000 years of life on those who consumed them.

In Mystical Journey, the artist has added a slew of roses, which in Luo’s work are frequently associated with desire and lust. The Daoist master has been replaced with a large fleshy boy, possibly the artist’s alter-ego. The crane hovers indecisively between an inviting bed of lush blossoms below and the glowing heavens above. The child bears a peach of immortality in one arm and more roses in the other. It appears that some difficult choices will have to be made if the journey to transcendence is to be completed.

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  • Mystical Journey
  • Luo Fahui (b. 1961) was born in Chongqing, Sichuan province, and was one of the very first classes to enroll in the recently re-opened Sichuan Fine Art Institute following the turmoil of the Cultural Revolution. He graduated from the oil painting department of the Sichuan Fine Art Institute in 1985, and unlike his avant-garde peers, managed to avoid participating in many of the artistic movements that took the careers of his peers in art centers like Beijing and Shanghai abroad. He predominately works in oil, painting images of pearly, fleshy bodies amidst amorphous grey backgrounds with hints of color and bloodshed on their forms. The bodies are full of lust, loneliness, and violence, while still lives often feature flowers whose vibrant red petals look like stains, and the artist has also begun fabricating fiberglass sculptures with similar themes. Luo Fahui has shown extensively within China, receiving his first solo show at the National Art Museum of China in 1993. Since the early nineties, he has also shown modestly abroad.

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    LUO Fahui 罗发辉
$35.00
2008.11 depicts an overlapping pair of spectral skulls. It is part of larger series based inspired by the Zheng’s reflections on death. The skulls are shown in profile with their deep, disproportionately large eye sockets facing the to the left. Zheng’s undulating brushwork creates a powerful impression of energy and and motion, complicating subjects’ usual association with mortality. The painting’s monochrome green palette blurs the distinction between the skulls and the background – it is not clear if we are looking at the skulls themselves, or only the ripples in the electrified atmosphere as they fly past us. While their facial outlines are nearly identical, their states of existence appear quite different. In the background, the larger cranium appears static and dark, possibly fading with the passage of time. In contrast, the skull in the foreground is luminous and dynamic; apparently leaving a wake of sparkling, swirling green energy. Is this a portrait of companionship, a progression from past to present, or a contrast of physical and spiritual? The effect is similar to a doubly exposed negative; the two images intimate a photographic progression. This suspension in space and time has made an object of movement itself, leaving its viewers to contemplate the relationship between permanence and transience.

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  • 2008-11
  • Zheng Delong (b. 1976) was born in Chengdu, Sichuan Province. He is stands out among his art academy-educated peers for having no formal training in art. Early interest in the arts, along with encouragement from his father, prompted him to establish his own studio in the '90s, and his output and exhibition schedule have increased steadily since then. Zheng Delong's technical skills rival those of his contemporaries, and he employs them in the depiction of liquified neon skulls, dogs, and other figural subjects. Zheng uses an expressive, swirling mixture of color and form to create chilling portraits of organic energy.

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    ZHENG De Long 郑德龙
$35.00
A toothy grin and great googly eyes. A child smiles at you, and the aviator's cap on her head is both absurd and whimsical, a joke the child knowingly shares with you the observer. Children are a frequent theme in Guo Jin's work, meditations upon pure joy and unadultered idealism. But against the context of modern China, the commentary takes on deeper, critical tones, asking if society's innocence has been lost or if naivety remains; if our worldview is youthful with its eyes full of opportunity, or blinded and obscurded by play-acting and make-believe.

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  • Portrait of a Child
  • Guo Jin (b. 1964) was born in Chengdu, in Sichuan Province, and attended the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute, graduating from the oil painting department in 1990. His paintings frequently take children as his subject matter in a juxtaposition of youth with China's own development, and idealism lost. After graduating in the early '90s, he showed modestly within China, significantly in Guangzhou Biennale's 1992 oil painting exhibition, in which many of his Sichuan peers also showed works. Since then, as art institutions and infrastructure have grown within China, he has participated in an increasing number of shows, often with his brother, the artist Guo Wei. His bold use of color and skill at creating silk-screen-like texture in oil have garnered him the attention of many gallerists and collectors. He lives and works in Chongqing and Beijing.

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    GUO Jin 郭晋
$35.00
Children are a frequent theme in Guo Jin's work, meditations upon pure joy and unadultered idealism. Jumping catches three children at Henri Cartier-Bresson's “decisive moment,” poised in kinetic potential as they jump mid-air against an abstract pink sky. Their rounded bodies possess a convincing heft, but their skin is spackled in red, yellow, peach, and white, a texture that suggests both materiality, like the surface of marble, and the passage of time, like antiqued painted furniture. Are these children real or allegorical? Where are they leaping to and what are they leaping from? Guo Jin's work gives itself to many different readings, but the children's sense of dynamism and joy remains constant.

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  • Jumping No. 5
  • Guo Jin (b. 1964) was born in Chengdu, in Sichuan Province, and attended the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute, graduating from the oil painting department in 1990. His paintings frequently take children as his subject matter in a juxtaposition of youth with China's own development, and idealism lost. After graduating in the early '90s, he showed modestly within China, significantly in Guangzhou Biennale's 1992 oil painting exhibition, in which many of his Sichuan peers also showed works. Since then, as art institutions and infrastructure have grown within China, he has participated in an increasing number of shows, often with his brother, the artist Guo Wei. His bold use of color and skill at creating silk-screen-like texture in oil have garnered him the attention of many gallerists and collectors. He lives and works in Chongqing and Beijing.

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    GUO Jin 郭晋
$35.00
Children are a frequent theme in Guo Jin's work, meditations upon pure joy and unadultered idealism. Sliding captures a group of three moving with grace and abandon down an unseen slide behind them. Their movement is innocent, capturing a moment of play, but when the children are considered as stand-ins for something greater, whether that be society or the state of a country, the painting takes on greater complexities: does the downward slide imply loss or danger, and if so, what is the childrens' agency? Did they initate this descent, or plunge into it unwittingly? Guo Jin's work gives itself to many different readings, but the painting's sense of momentum and unknown potential remains constant.

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  • Sliding No. 3
  • Guo Jin (b. 1964) was born in Chengdu, in Sichuan Province, and attended the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute, graduating from the oil painting department in 1990. His paintings frequently take children as his subject matter in a juxtaposition of youth with China's own development, and idealism lost. After graduating in the early '90s, he showed modestly within China, significantly in Guangzhou Biennale's 1992 oil painting exhibition, in which many of his Sichuan peers also showed works. Since then, as art institutions and infrastructure have grown within China, he has participated in an increasing number of shows, often with his brother, the artist Guo Wei. His bold use of color and skill at creating silk-screen-like texture in oil have garnered him the attention of many gallerists and collectors. He lives and works in Chongqing and Beijing.

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    GUO Jin 郭晋
$35.00
The scene is a gruesome one; a vicious creature with demonic red eyes and sharp claws eagerly laps at a gradually spreading pool of blood. Our gaze follows the trail of blood to the mangled corpse of a poor, defenseless carrot. Breathing a sigh of relief, the viewer quickly realizes that what was initially mistaken for blood is merely carrot juice and the bloodthirsty beast is just an albino bunny innocently enjoying its favorite snack. This mischievous visual duplicity typifies Lili's style and tiptoes playfully on the edge between lighthearted humor and foreboding dread. Her simultaneously cute and creepy animal subjects leave us questioning the difference and relationship between these two extremes.

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  • Yummy
  • Lili (b. 1982) was born in Chongqing, Sichuan, and graduated from the Sichuan Academy of Fine Arts in 2004. She can be characterized as part of the “Cartoon Generation” of Chinese artists, a group that emerged in Southern China during the latter half of the 1990s. Her subjects are seemingly cute, loveable animals such as teddy bears, bunnies, and birds, however their violent and grotesque actions imbue the work with a menacing air. The dark, ominous tone lurking beneath the surface of her supposedly innocent and playful cartoon depictions create a scene ripe with tension. The flat, simplified style of line drawing and muted color palette offer a stark contrast to the complex psychological drama subtly unfolding within the composition, amplifying the elements of suspense and uncertainty. Her works are reminiscent of artist Yoshimoto Nara (b. 1959), known for his Japanese Pop art era depictions of bleary-eyed, bobble head cartoon children in pastel hues. At first appearing merely grouchy after being awoken from a nap, upon further consideration, the dangerous weapons clutched in their tiny fists and dour expressions spread across their oversized faces are decidedly seething with loathing and aggression. Since 2004 Lili’s work has been exhibited in various spaces around mainland China, as well as further afield in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Brazil, and the United States.

    Click on the artist's name for more information
    LI Li 李丽
$35.00
2009-07, is part of larger series based inspired by the the artist’s reflections on death. a large skull is centered on a black background. It is rendered frontally in a shimmering riot of colors, which gives it a psychedelic flavor. Despite its eerie qualities, its atypical, abstracted representation partially removes its deathly associations; the skull’s technicolor, viscous rendering dissolves its outline, which helps to conceal its true nature. However, its deep eye sockets create a vacuum that draws in its viewers, forcing them into a staring match that they cannot hope to win. This frontal depiction is a watery mirror for its audience, and a less than subtle reminder of the inevitability of mortality.

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  • 2009-07
  • Zheng Delong (b. 1976) was born in Chengdu, Sichuan Province. He is stands out among his art academy-educated peers for having no formal training in art. Early interest in the arts, along with encouragement from his father, prompted him to establish his own studio in the '90s, and his output and exhibition schedule have increased steadily since then. Zheng Delong's technical skills rival those of his contemporaries, and he employs them in the depiction of liquified neon skulls, dogs, and other figural subjects. Zheng uses an expressive, swirling mixture of color and form to create chilling portraits of organic energy.

    Click on the artist's name for more information
    ZHENG De Long 郑德龙
$35.00

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