Born in 1976 and graduating only in 2000 from the Central
Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing, Wang Guangle is one of China’s contemporary
art darlings… and rightly so.
His work is fresh, original, holds it own and is
international, and by this I mean that it is easy on the eye whether you are
Lebanese or Brazilian; American or Indonesian. I was lucky this summer to
examine his work first hand during his first solo US exhibition at the Pace Gallery in Manhattan.
The basis for his 2004 Coffin
Paint series and by extension his Untitled
Series at Pace is the Fujian tradition of preparing oneself for the
afterlife by painting one’s coffin in red lacquer and every year you find yourself
alive, you apply another coat. Using
this as inspiration, Wang applies layers of acrylic paint twice each day to a
canvas, each layer a little more removed than the previous one from the edge. The build-up of paint towards the center
makes it seem 3-D creating a dramatically illusionistic work.
I found that each painting had a different effect on me
depending on its color, and so I found myself feeling happy, lugubrious and
contemplative all in the space of 30 minutes (and no, I’m not bi-polar). This to me signals remarkable work and Wang
Guangle is one artist I’ll be keeping my eye on.
image credits: The Pace Gallery, New York.
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