weathered root • fleeting eternity pertains to changes that we do to ourselves or to our surroundings. The exhibition attempts to examine the being of nature and artefact, past and present, sociocultural and symbolism. With three disparate series, it is under this premise that the exhibition invites the viewers to take the time to observe and to reflect, to take the risk of expanding his/her own perception of the forgotten habitation, means and resources.

Shao Yinong & Mu Chen are recognized for their practice in a variety of media, including photography, sculptures, installations, and paintings. Their works have been preoccupied with unearthing forgotten narratives, marginal histories and seemingly insignificant details in society in order to compose a visceral vocabulary that is both compelling and uncanny. Hence, acting as the epitome for its critical reflection on social architecture as a mirror of the political, psychological and poetic character of a location and a culture. The exhibition is constructed like a weaving of meanings or a crossing of mixed senses where the specific series is layout based on well-determined motives - embroidered presences of former currencies, emblematic pillars, and collective shots of anonymous courtyards - they are all there to reveal the fleetingness and encounters of our memories that accord a central place to the questions of perception and interpretation. The works compose much more than a simple materialization and reconstruction, giving a structure and setting up a dialectical relation with each other.

Here is also the public opportunity to view the artist’s most ambitious ongoing project to date – an installation based on exquisite threadworks portraying former bank notes of different periods in time through the traditional techniques of Suzhou embroidery on sheer silk. The historical references explore our perception of time through challenging our senses. Entitled Spring and Autumn, it comprises of massive pieces that impress both in appearance and execution, with the overwhelming density and scenic exuberance of the original currencies’ compositions. The imposing presence is a dramatic architectural intervention in the gallery, rising like a translucent fortress reminiscent of a glistening baroque richness. While the exhibition is lit to reveal the finite details and textures of the sewn techniques, as well as the material's uniquely reflective and refractive qualities, the series is not merely addressing embroidery as a needle tool leading to actual works of art. It alludes to the fragile nature of history and time: an illusory and fleeting projection that is at once historical, mental and social, reminding of the connection between the past and the present. All the elements articulate a narrative path dealing with symbolic belief and power, not only as references recurrent in their literalness, but also as metaphors that make evident of the economics and politics of a certain era of a nation. Through the sheer black yarn of soft silk, these images of once-circulated currencies appear or disappear depending on the angle of observation as reflections from the past towards the future. Thus, the project explores to what degree these previous manifestations prove to be viable forms of memories/reflections in different and changing political contexts. The artists invite the viewer to submerge him/herself in the symbolic wealth of the artworks’ narratives, in the threaded surfaces and the starkness of the pictorial gestures, with the aim of delving, from the particularity of the references employed, into universal analogies on the desire and construction of ideology and power.

Shao Yinong’s practice is nourished by a keen interest in cultural and spiritual reflection. He engages themes of religion philosophies, mysticism and faith, and investigates our belief in the universe. As he reflects on philosophical considerations of contemporary life, his works explore the cultural fabrication of nature. Characterized by his deft ability to transform common materials like steel, wood and velvet into forms and shapes reminiscent of the natural world, Shao’s works bring ideas and experience into poetic tension. Meticulous, subtle, and often immersive, his sculptural interpretations and installation scenarios offer viewers opportunities for contemplation and discovery. The artist is always with the aim of articulating the content of his work as precisely as possible.

In the new series, Heart Without Delusion，a Buddhistic term that refers to the very essence of intrinsic world or human being, Shao seizes one aspect of reality and processes it into a visual metaphor. He transforms different types of wood, and whittles them into proportioned pagoda-like appearances. Installed as a larger ensemble, they are created in an attempt to simulate imageries that are linked with dynamics in Chinese traditional architecture and monuments. In varying heights and thickness, these columnar sculptures are replete with refined details and workmanship – layers of visible tree rings, smooth carvings with natural fragments left intact. His concerns to intricate working methods and style in personal and spiritual experiences is suggested to viewers through a natural source object to produced subject to an aesthetic interpretation as well as to a physical interaction. Shao’s sculptures take on the sensory role for us to discover and respond to individual feelings and the process of perceptions about ourselves in the seemingly ordinary yet evocatively, reflective appearance that is rich in divine, mythological and sacred references. 

*image (left)
installation view
Courtesy of Shangahi Gallery of Art