In this show, front line contemporary features the works of Zhu Wei, one of the world's most prominent contemporary Chinese ink painters and an important explorer of this art form. Zhu Wei belongs to the very first group of internationally recognized contemporary Chinese artists in the 1990s.
Born in 1966 in Beijing, Zhu received his education in the People's Liberation Army Academy of Art, Beijing Film Academy and China Institute of Art. He made his debut in an international exhibition in 1993, and since then, he's had more than 20 Solo shows worldwide, as well as publications writing extensively about his works in more than eight editions of special anthologies. His works have also been collected by various domestic and foreign museums (such as NAMOC, American Foundation for Far Eastern Art, TX, USA, HK Artists’ Alliance, HK, CAFA)
In this show, front line contemporary proudly presents a series of woodblock prints by Zhu Wei as well as his more recent work: the VERNAL EQUINOX series. The technique of using woodblocks for printing in China was revived during the 1930s and even more broadly used during the 1960s. Zhu Wei's woodblock prints are not small book illustrations but large format prints executed on Chinese paper. They are masculine, powerful and have a strong impact on their viewers.
Regarding the series "Vernal Equinox", scholar Freda Murck points out that "[... ] they carry Zhu Wei's art in a new direction: weightless figures levitate against an undefined ground amid flowers and leaves. Their faces are impassive, bur variously register glum indifference, distress, surprise or satisfaction. Hands are tucked into pockets or folded into sleeves recalling the idea of passively "looking on with folded arms."[ ...] The series title suggests that it is spring and that these floating figures may be falling in love. Some figures float in contentment; earth-bound figures are left merely to think about love, to dwell on memories or longings“
Zhu Wei's technique is also very distinctive. The repeated rinsing on the mulberry-bark paper (which is made in Anhui province to his specifications) creates a distinctive effect that resembles old Chinese prints.
In her analysis of Zhu Wei's work, Freda Murck concludes that "Zhu Wei's creation of art is an amalgam of past and present. Visually, his paintings are more easily associated with the professional class of painters in dynastic China and yet the messages of empathy and social criticism are very clearly in the tradition of the educated elite. His awareness of the weight that words and images have carried in both traditional and modern China makes his art both fascinating and obscure: messages are deeply imbedded in layered allusions and small details. As he enters his forties, Zhu Wei continues his keen observations of self and society, interested in a broad range of Chinese expressive art, Zhu Wei's paintings record quickly changing social norms, human fables, and political absurdities, in short, the life that he is witnessing and the history that is unfolding before us."
