Kaleidoscope

Canadian artist Ross Kelly says that cities are not seamless. Their inhabitants, architecture, even histories are made up of the co-existence of innumerable disparate parts, forced into association by a greater structural logic. Kelly's works suggest that there can never be a singular, stable image of a city. While each snapshot, like each individual viewpoint, exists as a discrete moment. Our understanding of a particular place is always multiple, carrying with it the memory of other times, the knowledge of other spaces. Chen Jianguo tries to explores into the real meaning of fright. The question that he poses before us is: Fright, is it from the jaws of the predators or from the not-so-frightening but illusive mouth that lurks behind? Liu Xuejun’s works reflect his sensitive observations of his environs and to articulate his attitudes on issues of the days of our life. 

Tien Chang paints horses almost exclusively. With minimal brush strokes, he freezes the vitality of these four-legged animals onto his works, regardless whether those horses are standing on guard or galloping in full vigour with flying manes and stretched out hooves. Chang’s main interest is on capturing and depicting their supremacy. Feng Zhengquan’s landscapes are places of absurdity. The traditional mountains and waters remain familiar though their colours have all faded to levels of grey. Colours are very much alive. They are in the people, the structures and things other than the landscapes, that is his way of saying – “the devils are in the details”. Li Yibing’s deprived childhood and harsh up-bringing have been urging him to search for peace and to create tranquillity in his works as these two “things” were definitely missing in the early part of his life. With his works, he aimed at providing a soft landing zone for the viewers amidst the chaos and conflicts that clustered our social environments these days.