.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
The colorful, amorphous forms that constitute Liu Wei’s Outdoor No. 4 demonstrates the artist’s unique approach to contemporary abstract painting. Belonging to a generation of Chinese who grew up in a rapidly urbanizing China, his work explores the rigidly controlled social and political contradictions of modern Chinese society.
Drawing on the tradition of shan sui—a style of Chinese painting that depicts scenery or natural landscapes—Liu Wei infuses his canvases with a seismic level of energy with his bold use of color. Set against the dark hues, his golden yellows, regal purple and deep azure blues pop off the surface of the canvas. The artist points out that all artistic creation is a continuum, and that in works such as the present example he is continuing with previous themes, but expressing them in new ways. He is at pains to point out that he cannot depict things as they are, and that his work is a way of developing his own understand by combining reality and knowledge.
Born in 1972, Liu Wei graduated from the National Academy of Fine Arts in Hangzhou in 1996 and began his career as part of a subversive art movement known as Post-Sense Sensibility who created extreme experiences for their audiences. Working in many different types of media including video, drawing, sculpture as well as painting, his work is included in many institutional collections including the Samsung Museum of Art in Seoul, the Rubell Family Collection in Miami, and the Astrup Fernley Museet in Oslo; in 2019, his work was also selected for inclusion in the 58th Venice Biennale.
Drawing on the tradition of shan sui—a style of Chinese painting that depicts scenery or natural landscapes—Liu Wei infuses his canvases with a seismic level of energy with his bold use of color. Set against the dark hues, his golden yellows, regal purple and deep azure blues pop off the surface of the canvas. The artist points out that all artistic creation is a continuum, and that in works such as the present example he is continuing with previous themes, but expressing them in new ways. He is at pains to point out that he cannot depict things as they are, and that his work is a way of developing his own understand by combining reality and knowledge.
Born in 1972, Liu Wei graduated from the National Academy of Fine Arts in Hangzhou in 1996 and began his career as part of a subversive art movement known as Post-Sense Sensibility who created extreme experiences for their audiences. Working in many different types of media including video, drawing, sculpture as well as painting, his work is included in many institutional collections including the Samsung Museum of Art in Seoul, the Rubell Family Collection in Miami, and the Astrup Fernley Museet in Oslo; in 2019, his work was also selected for inclusion in the 58th Venice Biennale.