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WANG CHUNLI | 王春黎

  • Lives in: Chongqing
Wang Chunli (b.1982) was born in Chongqing. He is a recent graduate of the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute, where he attended high school, and earned his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees. Like Chen Shijun, with whom he shares a studio, Wang Chunli studied oil painting, and his practice absorbs much from the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute's storied oil painting tradition. Wang Chunli uses the medium to mediate between digital and physical image-making proceses. The “Exponential Repitition of Visual Readings” series, for example, makes abstractions from images sourced online, such as an image of American president Barack Obama: in order to create the final work, Wang photographs the image, and then photographs the image of that image. The process is repeated seemingly endlessly, like a hall of mirrors, resulting in a final image of stark colors and forms, boiled down to the essential, abstract ghost-like structures of the original. Recently graduated, Wang Chunli has only recently begun showing, mostly in domestic group exhibitions with many of his young Chongqing peers.

A WORD FROM THE ARTIST

The visual realism and logic of the image itself have always fascinated me. Due to continuous replication, the veracity of many of the images we see gradually disappears until the reality behind the original image fades or is hidden.

Rephotographing the image dozens of times using a digital camera and computer screen, opens a dramatic visual gap between the original image and the final replicated version. My work consists mainly of capturing this visual contrast and presenting it via paintings on canvas or on columns of stacked cardboard sheets.

Painting is a means for me to interpret and reconstruct the image that has been dissimilated by camera and computer monitor. The final images look like visions diluted by time, and can only be interpreted and understood through the blurry trail of reality and a full imagination. While these images evoke the fading of an image due to age, in fact this effect is only the result of repeated mechanical reproduction.

CURRICULUM VITAE

1982Born in Chongqing
2002 Graduated from Sichuan Fine Arts Institute High School
2006Bachelor's Degree in Oil Painting from the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute
2010Master's Degree in Oil Painting from the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute
Exhibitions
2011 "Find My Way in My Own Way ", Beijing
Chengdu Bienniale, Special Invitational Exhibition, Chengdu
2010"New Vision 2010 - Players" Sichuan Fine Arts Academy Graduating Students Exhibition, He Xiangning Art Gallery Shenzhen.
“The Way of the Image”, exhibition with Chen Shijun, Organhaus, Chongqing
17th Annual Exhibition of Sichuan Fine Arts Institute, Awarded Wenxuan Scholarship, Chongqing Fine Arts Museum, Chongqing
The 7th Annual Sichuan Fine Arts Academy Graduate Students Exhibition, Chongqing Fine Art Museum, Chongqing
2009"GREEN" Contemporary Art Festival, Beijing
The 6th Annual Sichuan Fine Arts Academy Graduate Students Exhibition, Chongqing Fine Art Museum, Chongqing
2008The 2nd City of Chongqing Exhibition of Works by Graduate Students, Chongqing
200714th Annual Exhibition of the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute, Chongqing Fine Art Museum, Chongqing
2006" The Things Are Still There, the People Are Not", Awarded Second Prize, Exhibition of Works by Sichuan Fine Arts Academy Graduating Students
" New Vision 06: Modern Adult", Exhibition of Outstanding Works from Art Academy Graduates, Shenzhen
2005The 13th Annual Exhibition of the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute, Awarded the Creative Painting Award, Chongqing Fine Art Museum, Chongqing
2002The 10th Annual Exhibition of the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute, Chongqing Fine Art Museum, Chongqing