Artists

Artist: SHEN Shu Bin

Born in Shanxi Province, China in 1978, Artist Shen Shu Bin graduated with a Bachelor’s degree from Shanxi University’s College of Fine Arts, and obtained a Master’s degree in Oil Painting from Tianjin Academy of Fine Arts. Currently teaching at university, Shen Shu Bin and his paintings have received unparalleled recognition, with exhibitions held in China, Singapore, and Germany. His outstanding pieces won him the recognition of China’s Top Talented & Outstanding Youths in Arts in 2015.

Artist Shen Shu Bin epitomizes the concept of Chinese avant-garde art. Although initially an art form derived from the studios and minds of Western artists. He uses rational thought as his main inspiration and he constantly lays aside personal emotion to ponder upon the bigger picture about how society is developing through his creations.

For the series of Light, the artist presented “empty souls” that the characters in his paintings were numbly living a life baffled by loss of meaning. For the series of Adorable Happiness, the artist temporary abandoned his usual inspiration from the current issue of the society with rebellious but focuses on more of the joy that he experienced, as a Father. The charming use of colours and adorable little animals were the topic of his creation.

For the series of his latest creations, Rebirth on the Road of Pilgrimage, the artists expanded his exploration from individual-society to profound connections between humanity and nature. In his paintings, the animals, with either pure natural spirit or human-like emotions, exuberantly searching for an unknown path of spiritual significance and harmony.

Major Public Exhibitions in Recent Years (Selected):

2017 Rebirth on the road of pilgrimage (solo), Minsheng Art Museum, Beijing, China

2017 Curitiba Biennial (group), Brazil

2017 Modern Chinese Oil Painting Exhibition (group), Newport News, VA, USA

2015 Spark - the programme of discovering contemporary youth artists in China (group), Today Art Museum, Beijing

Concepts of Artwork:

Shen Shu Bin’s artwork utilizes magical realism representation to express fictional thinking and philosophical reflection of the society and environment connected to an individual. In early stage of his career, the artist explored to reflect individual’s confusion and distress caused by the collision between ideal and reality, which further resulted in conflicts and absurdity across the society. While observing individual’s anxiety and inability to reconcile under a sense of lost, the artist imaged a disordered world where the matter and spirit meaning was destroyed. “How mankind, who inherited animal spirit, will react” becomes the question conveyed through the paintings.

Artist: LI Jing

Born in Shanxi Province, China in 1980, Artist LI Jing graduated with a Bachelor’s degree from Shanxi University’s College of Fine Arts, and obtained a Master’s degree in Oil Painting from Tianjin Academy of Fine Arts. LI Jing is one of the younger generation of Chinese artists who are more focusing on exploring and reflecting personal experience and individual's life, without much touch on social dynamics.

LI Jing's artworks are "sort of" imagination of dialogue to inner self, in solitude. In his stilleben-like, dark-toned paintings, the symbolic red-nose characters live in mingled eras, boundaries of time and presence are blurred. In their composure, one cannot really tell whether the characters are with utopian-like tranquility or they are just "life is elsewhere". They seem to be talking to the audience silently, making the audience immerse into the artist's hidden story.

Major Public Exhibitions in Recent Years (Selected):

• 2017 Youth in Art+ Exhibition (group), Himalayas Museum, Shanghai, China
• 2017 Multi Dimension: Second Contemporary Art Incitation Exhibition (group), Riverside Art Museum, Beijing, China
• 2015 Byart Exhibition Works of Young Artists (group), Xi-Ling Seal Art Museum, Hangzhou, China