Ben Brown Fine Arts presents the first UK solo exhibition of Wang Keping, one of China’s foremost contemporary sculptors. Wang Keping burst onto the Chinese art scene in the late 1970s as a founding member of the Beijing avant-garde group The Stars (Xing Xing). Featuring over 20 works, the exhibition spans almost 25 years of exceptional artistic production and presents brand new pieces alongside significant creations from the artist’s earlier career.

Wang Keping works almost exclusively in a single medium: wood. The figures and abstract forms in his sculptures seem to emerge organically out of the wood’s grain, knots and flaws. He strives towards simplicity, creating monumental symbols of human nature and sensuality. This exhibition places particular emphasis on his interest in human forms, as demonstrated by the male and female companion pieces Le Matin and La Nuit (1989) as well as newer pieces Yin et Yang (2004) and Renaissance (2013).

Unusual among contemporary artists, Wang Keping completes each sculpture without delegating to studio assistants, a practice attributed to his belief in the intimate nature of artistic production. To prepare the wood for his sculptures, Wang Keping will let logs sit for months, sometimes years, to allow the innate features of the material to grow and deepen until they take on their own distinctive, biologically-determined shapes. Beginning the carving process while the wood is still fresh and moist, Wang Keping encourages cracks to form which eventually dry to form details such as facial features, clenched fists and folds of skin.

Image: © Wang Keping, Ben Brown Fine Arts