Richard Koh Fine Art (RKFA) Kuala Lumpur is proud to present China artist, He Jian (b.1978), 1st solo exhibition in Kuala Lumpur entitled THE ETERNAL WAVE. The exhibition will be on at our gallery from 21 Sep – 4 Oct 2012.

He Jian is notable for his amalgamation of ancient and contemporary Chinese culture. Rather than painting in oil like most of his contemporaries, he uses rice paper, dry pigment, and binder as his media. He strategically layers and manipulates his paints to assume the quality of the timeworn Yuan Dynasty frescoes at the Yong Le Temple in Shanxi Province.

In THE ETERNAL WAVE, He Jian contextualizes the humble receivers of the 1980s. To many, radio is one of the inventions that changed humanity. For He Jian and many other people in China, the radio was the epitome of communist propaganda. The radio made it easy for the Chinese officials to disseminate political ideals to the masses and is a centerpiece in He Jian’s childhood memories as he vividly remembers the static sound before capturing a broadcasting frequency. He Jian’s stylistics and subject matter are informed by his nostalgia.

Like in previous exhibitions that feature other utilitarian objects, He Jian pays homage to the radio which validity has been threaten in the Internet & smartphone age. He Jian has observed China’s shift towards a consumer culture that has relegated radio to a forgotten object.

He Jian graduated with distinction, and continued on as a lecturer in the oil painting department of the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute. Since graduating, He Jian has received increasing attention from the international art world, participating in several domestic and international shows.