Video Link: In the Gallery: Two Female Artists’ Paintings, Memories, and Culture | W.ONESPACE
W.ONE SPACE is honored to present the duo exhibition "Relics" by artists Fan Chujing and Chen Lulu. With their own sensitive but sharp perspectives on painting, life and the world, two completely different artists jointly bring their new works created in 2020 and 2021.
Relics refer to the traces left by human beings’ conscious processing. It can be a magnificent or a noble monument that emerges in everyone's mind, or it can be just a piece of evidence of living. In the early Paleolithic Zhoukoudian, the soil color of the ground turned brick red and hard in the soil layer, proving that humans have mastered the use of fire. This is an example of "romantic relic". The relics not only help us to trace the changes in history, but also whisper to us, in the past and present, the silent proof and distant dreams of human life.Fan Chujing and Chen Lulu have both recently absorbed nourishment from Classical art and use them with their own practice. Either they are attracted by the mottled traces from the past, or infected by the subtle emotions of the present.
Behaviors are the expressions of the past experience. Memories in mind seem like the exploratory, unearthed and cleaned up in the relics. They require our exploration, archaeology, and excavation to "unearth" precious memory images. In the post-pandemic period, we are coping with the impact of the pandemic and adapting to the sudden changes in life. At the time of rapid changes in the general environment, the two female artists re-examine themselves, observing life and exploring more diversified painting languages with delicate but intuitive sense in order to express a deeper self.
Fan Chujing, an artist living in Wuhan, has more thinking about the complex multi-dimensional relationships between life and existence, individual and the present after being baptized by the pandemic. Fan Chujing's artistic creations base mostly on personal experience and perception. She can skillfully use multiple painting materials to express her own and social experience and thinking. Light and life, time and memory are two key terms for interpreting her new works in the past two years.
To be specific, the “Glimmer” series in 2019, the artist depicted many details of cacti. At that time, she focused more on the details and painting techniques; after experiencing the first break out of covid-19 pandemic in Wuhan in early 2020, she turned to focus on expressing life and personal emotions. The work "Hiking" was created during the period of home isolation caused by the pandemic. When being unable to go out became a normal state, the artist began to reminisce about her childhood and depict the yearning for the outside world; In the new "Ivory" series in 2021, the artist extracted simple but more abstract ivory burial pits from the archaeological documentary of Sanxingdui as objects to trace and explore abstract concepts such as "history" and "time and space".
Rather saying that the work changes from "micro" to "macro", it is more likely that the artist's self-expression converts from objective to subjective consciousness. Most of the inspirations of the new works come from Fan Chujing’s personal life that she switches back and forth between daily life and dreams. Therefore, a background of "sadness and melancholy" lingers in the picture for a long time. She uses scenes of inner spiritual space linked by daily experience to depict a delicate and subtle “sleepwalking” state.
Chen Lulu is an artist who has the courage to express her personal preferences. She has always tried to express her personal feelings at the moment through the straightforward language and arbitrary brushstrokes. The change of personal taste is accompanied by the change of painting themes. The addition and reduction of painting elements and themes are kind of introspection and growth from the past creations. Therefore, the new works in 2021 could also be seen as a "flying" state on the basis of the past. Some of the new works disclose fragments of past memories, but the reality of the memories is always broader than pictures show. "In the gap between the constantly floating memory fragments, the subconscious will flash out parts that are not directly related to the memory." This subconscious is the source of inspiration for Lulu's creation.
Chen Lulu also used Ipad as a way to compose and collage, so that her works incorporate a sense of "digital aesthetics". The combination of digital technology and expressionist brushstrokes makes individual memories and clues in ancient paintings collage and reform. Whether it is two-dimensional collage or a stronger sense of space, daily objects or natural scenes, even Chinese traditional elements that frequently appear in new works, unique and delicate expression of the mysterious combination of objects and space always run through her works and create a surrealisticimage.
Two romantic female artists with full of vitality present their personal insights after examining historical memories, using poetic brushstrokes to jointly establish contemporary "relics" that belong to the future.
W.ONE SPACE is honored to present the duo exhibition "Relics" by artists Fan Chujing and Chen Lulu. With their own sensitive but sharp perspectives on painting, life and the world, two completely different artists jointly bring their new works created in 2020 and 2021.
Relics refer to the traces left by human beings’ conscious processing. It can be a magnificent or a noble monument that emerges in everyone's mind, or it can be just a piece of evidence of living. In the early Paleolithic Zhoukoudian, the soil color of the ground turned brick red and hard in the soil layer, proving that humans have mastered the use of fire. This is an example of "romantic relic". The relics not only help us to trace the changes in history, but also whisper to us, in the past and present, the silent proof and distant dreams of human life.Fan Chujing and Chen Lulu have both recently absorbed nourishment from Classical art and use them with their own practice. Either they are attracted by the mottled traces from the past, or infected by the subtle emotions of the present.
Behaviors are the expressions of the past experience. Memories in mind seem like the exploratory, unearthed and cleaned up in the relics. They require our exploration, archaeology, and excavation to "unearth" precious memory images. In the post-pandemic period, we are coping with the impact of the pandemic and adapting to the sudden changes in life. At the time of rapid changes in the general environment, the two female artists re-examine themselves, observing life and exploring more diversified painting languages with delicate but intuitive sense in order to express a deeper self.
Fan Chujing, an artist living in Wuhan, has more thinking about the complex multi-dimensional relationships between life and existence, individual and the present after being baptized by the pandemic. Fan Chujing's artistic creations base mostly on personal experience and perception. She can skillfully use multiple painting materials to express her own and social experience and thinking. Light and life, time and memory are two key terms for interpreting her new works in the past two years.
To be specific, the “Glimmer” series in 2019, the artist depicted many details of cacti. At that time, she focused more on the details and painting techniques; after experiencing the first break out of covid-19 pandemic in Wuhan in early 2020, she turned to focus on expressing life and personal emotions. The work "Hiking" was created during the period of home isolation caused by the pandemic. When being unable to go out became a normal state, the artist began to reminisce about her childhood and depict the yearning for the outside world; In the new "Ivory" series in 2021, the artist extracted simple but more abstract ivory burial pits from the archaeological documentary of Sanxingdui as objects to trace and explore abstract concepts such as "history" and "time and space".
Rather saying that the work changes from "micro" to "macro", it is more likely that the artist's self-expression converts from objective to subjective consciousness. Most of the inspirations of the new works come from Fan Chujing’s personal life that she switches back and forth between daily life and dreams. Therefore, a background of "sadness and melancholy" lingers in the picture for a long time. She uses scenes of inner spiritual space linked by daily experience to depict a delicate and subtle “sleepwalking” state.
Chen Lulu is an artist who has the courage to express her personal preferences. She has always tried to express her personal feelings at the moment through the straightforward language and arbitrary brushstrokes. The change of personal taste is accompanied by the change of painting themes. The addition and reduction of painting elements and themes are kind of introspection and growth from the past creations. Therefore, the new works in 2021 could also be seen as a "flying" state on the basis of the past. Some of the new works disclose fragments of past memories, but the reality of the memories is always broader than pictures show. "In the gap between the constantly floating memory fragments, the subconscious will flash out parts that are not directly related to the memory." This subconscious is the source of inspiration for Lulu's creation.
Chen Lulu also used Ipad as a way to compose and collage, so that her works incorporate a sense of "digital aesthetics". The combination of digital technology and expressionist brushstrokes makes individual memories and clues in ancient paintings collage and reform. Whether it is two-dimensional collage or a stronger sense of space, daily objects or natural scenes, even Chinese traditional elements that frequently appear in new works, unique and delicate expression of the mysterious combination of objects and space always run through her works and create a surrealisticimage.
Two romantic female artists with full of vitality present their personal insights after examining historical memories, using poetic brushstrokes to jointly establish contemporary "relics" that belong to the future.
