Ye Jian Qing 葉劍青 is an example of an artist who has redefined what it means to make contemporary art; retaining the aesthetic and philosophical heritage of Chinese cultural influences while displaying an individualistic creative identity. Born in Zhejiang Province, China, Ye is a well established artist, having won acclaim from critics and collectors alike. After getting his Master’s Degree and PhD from the Beijing Central Academy of Art (CAFA), he now teaches at the Fresco Department in CAFA.
In a bold and valuable return to subtle yet intellectually stimulating works, Ye draws on the refined approach of traditional Chinese painting and fuses it with modern sensibilities. His oil on canvas depictions of land and cityscapes are unique in both concept and perspective, expressed in an almost dream-like manner to trigger emotional and philosophical responses amongst his viewers. Ye’s work is fluid and moving; relying on dusky hues and diaphanous textures to evoke a sense of deep poeticism and yearning for a past which is rapidly fading. The emotive quality of his work turns the muted canvas into a metaphor for cultural and artistic reflection.
A recognizable theme of Ye’s works is the image of Hutongs, the traditional winding alleyways of China which connect the courtyards of ancient houses. Hutongs are deeply ingrained into the psyche of city inhabitants, being the backdrop of daily life, historical and social change. However they are gradually being eroded by encroaching urbanization and Ye’s softly blurred images are permeated by a sense of pursuing vanishing moments.
Ye’s paintings capture present-day China in a way which is rarely seen, as a product of its rich cultural and historical past ceding to a bustling metropolis, an anomaly which will soon vanish and leave its traces only on the canvas of progressive visionaries like himself.
Selected Solo Exhibitions
Rain Rhythms, New Works by Ye Jianqing, 2012, iPreciation, Singapore
Ye Jianqing – Reflections of the Mind, 2010, National Art Museum of China, Beijing, China
Hutong Memory: A Solo Exhibition, 2009, iPreciation, Hong Kong
Ye Jianqing, 2007, The Rotunda, Exchange Square Central, Hong Kong
Hailing from Shanghai, China, Zhang Jian-Jun (b.1955) is one of the most disciplined and gifted contemporary Asian artists of our time. Zhang graduated from Shanghai Drama Institute’s Fine Arts Department in 1978 and is today an Adjunct Professor at the Fine Arts Department of New York University.
Zhang’s art perforates the surface of East-West fusion and the idea of time, expressing his strikingly unique and profoundly perceptive musings. Exploring the essence of these topics, his art may not be instantaneously interpretable by many; however, this is also the very quality that elevates the intellectual element of his works, inviting viewer participation. Zhang demonstrates his gift in the artistic manipulation of time by re-creating the ancient scholar rock with modern materials such as silicone rubber. These ornate rocks, called Taihu Rocks, originated from Suzhou and are traditionally appreciated and prized by Chinese Literati. They are also symbolic of traditional Chinese culture and focus on the changes in aesthetics, culture and social patterns across time. Creatively, he has resurrected a fragment of history and propelled episodic moments from that distant time to this present age. These consequential works are evidently contemporary and undoubtedly unique.
Zhang has held more than 15 solo exhibitions and over 100 group exhibitions in China, the United States and other parts of Asia and Europe. His works are collected permanently in the K11 Art Foundation (Hong Kong), M+ Museum (Hong Kong), Power Station of Art (Shanghai), Brooklyn Museum (New York), Yuz Museum (Shanghai), San Francisco Asian Art Museum (California), Shanghai Art Museum, Jerry Yang Collection (California), Uli Sigg Collection, JP Morgan (Hong Kong), Guangdong Museum of Art (Guangzhou), Frederick R. Weisman Foundation of Art (California),
He was also involved in the Golden Globe Awards Party 2007 where he was commissioned to install his scholar rock sculpture, Mirage Garden #5.
Selected Solo Exhibitions
2021 | Residency Programme co-presented by Royal Academy and K11 Art Foundation, presented at chiK11 art museum Shanghai, chiK11 art space Shenyang and K11 HACC Hong Kong.
2017 | Between Then and Now, OCAT Xi’An, China
2016 | Water • Quintessence, Pearl Lam Gallery, Shanghai, China
2015 | China Chapter, Galerie Albrecht, Berlin, Germany
2015 | Jade Mountain & Ink River, Christian Duvernois Gallery, New York, New York, USA
2015 | 1980s: Zhang Jian-Jun’s Early Artwork (1978-1988), Yuz Museum, Shanghai, China
2015 | Nature and Beyond,” Leo Gallery, Art Basel Hong Kong
2015 | Water • Ink • China, Pace Prints, New York, New York, USA
2014 | Nature, Art Projects International, New York, New York, USA
2012 | Forms • Water • Vestiges, Pavilion of Repose Garden, Kunshan, China
2011 | Water, 99 Art Center at M50, Shanghai, China
Jin Jie 金捷 was born in 1965 in Jiangsu province, China, he graduated from Oil painting studies in Nanjing University of Arts in 1991, and went on to achieve an M.A. in Western Arts and Lecture in 1997. In 2008, he obtained a Ph.D in Fine Art from his alma mater Nanjing University of Arts in Jiangsu province.
The lyrical nature of Jin Jie’s semi-abstract works is a testament of his mastery of western traditional of oil painting techniques. With over two decades of exploration and development within one of the most competitive art institutions in China, Jin Jie employs inviting colours, notably various shades of grey, black and white, with occasional strokes of colours, to portray the rural landscape of his beloved homeland.
Jin Jie feels a strong affinity to his homeland, a personal and familiar place deeply rooted where his spirit lifts when he encounters her beautiful landscape and scenery. This is evident in his work where we observe generous layers of oil streaked across the canvas, in quick and vigorous strokes, capturing not the minute details but the essence of the place, of the atmospheric qualities of the Jiangsu landscape and also the essence of the artist’s state of mind and his response to the place.
As such, Jin Jie instinctively captures the spirit of Jiangnan style – where the works are poetic rather than political in today’s contemporary art scene. Despite the weighty societal changes occurring in China, the artist has allowed viewers to adopt a unique perspective of his hometown, casting aside the stuffy, industrialized atmosphere that precedes economic development, and drawing attention to the presence of a poetic, tireless cultural code that binds a country with its people.
Jin Jie has exhibited extensively within Jiangsu province and is a member of the prestigious China Artists Association amongst many other notable appointments in China. He continues to live and work in Nanjing.
Education
2008 | Ph.D in Fine Art, Nanjing University of the Arts, Jiangsu, China
1997 | M.A. in Western Arts and Lecture, Nanjing University of the Arts, Jiangsu, China
1991 | B.A. in Oil Painting, Nanjing University of the Arts, Jiangsu, China
Born in Changchun, China and later becoming an American citizen, Hung Liu held a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Art and Art Education from the Beijing Teacher’s College, a Graduate Degree in Mural Painting from the Central Academy of Fine Art, Beijing, and a Master of Fine Arts Degree in Visual Arts from the University of California San Diego. She was a Professor of Arts at MillsCollege in Oakland.
Over the years, Liu had staged more than 50 solo exhibitions and over 100 group exhibitions in the U.S, China and numerous other parts of Asia and Europe. She had also been the recipient of several prestigious awards like the Society for the Encouragement of Contemporary Art (SECA) Award, and the San Francisco Women’s Center Humanities Award, to name a few. Her artworks were on permanent display at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Whitney Museum of American Art, and various corporate institutions in the U.S.
Hung Liu’s art conveyed her intimate interpretations of various cultural and societal issues, drawing inspiration from turn-of-the-century photographs which she collected from China. These rare and unique remnants of an episodic time and the stories encased within them are artistically projected into meaningful oil and canvas paintings, thus encapsulating Liu’s personal impressions and reflections.
Liu’s protagonists usually centred around nameless female figures, individuals who were sold off into prostitution; with lotuses symbolising offerings surrounding their lithe, porcelain bodies. Through her paintings, she desired to bestow them ‘new lives’, being a believer in the notion that art needs ‘soul’ and ‘meaning’ to acquire timelessness. These paintings by Liu were analogous to shrines that have been dedicated to these lost women. Liu passed away in 2021.
Selected Solo Exhibitions
2015 | Summoning Ghosts: The Art of Hung Liu Retrospective, Palm Springs Art Museum, CA, USA
2015 | Summoning Ghosts: The Art of Hung Liu Retrospective, Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas, MO, USA
2014 | Hung Liu: Prints and Tapestries, La Salle University Art Museum, Philadelphia, PA, USA
2014 | The Rat Years, 2Huntington Museum of Art, Huntington, WV, USA
2013 | Questions from the Sky: New Work from Hung Liu, San Jose Museum of Art, San Jose, CA, USA
2013 | Summoning Ghosts: The Art of Hung Liu Retrospective, Oakland Museum of California, Oakland, CA, USA
2013 | Hung Liu: Offerings, Mills College Art Museum, Oakland, CA, USA
2014 | I’ll Show you Mine: Contemporary Artists Explore Family Portraits, Palo Alto, CA, USA
2014 | Beautiful Disintegrating Obstinate Horror Drawing and Other Recent Acquisitions and Selections from the Museums’ Permanent Collection, UNM Art Museum’s Jonson Gallery, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, USA
2014 | The Intuitionists, The Drawing Center, NY, USA
2014 | Radical Repetition: Albers to Warhol, from the Collections of Jordan D. Schnitzer and his Family Foundation, Whatcom Museum, Bellingham, WA, USA
2014 | The Female Gaze: Selfhood and Community from the Linda Lee Alter Collection of Art by Women, Victoria H. Myhren Gallery, University of Denver School of Art and Art History, CO, USA
2014 | The Other Side: Chinese and Mexican Immigration to America, USC Pacific Asia Museum, Pasadena, CA, USA
Selected Public Collections
2016 | Highland Hospital, Oakland, CA, USA
2008 | San Francisco International Airport, CA, USA
2006 | Oakland International Airport Terminal 2, CA, USA
2004 | Asian Art Museum Civic Centre, San Francisco, CA, USA
2002 | Cerritos Library, CA, USA
1995 | Embarcadero Center, San Francisco, CA, USA
1995 | San Jose Museum of Art and the City of San Jose Collection, CA, USA
1992 | Moscone Convention Center, San Francisco, CA, USA
1986 | Media Center and Communications Building, University of California, San Diego, CA, USA
1981 | Central Academy of Fine Art, Beijing, China
For full list of exhibitions and public collections, please contact the gallery atenquiry@ipreciation.com
Images of artworks
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