Chambers Fine Art New York is pleased to announce Ye Nan’s Phosphorous Red and Yuan Yuan’s A World of Yesterday and Tomorrow - two very different solo shows to be shown consecutively that demonstrate the range and promise of new work being produced by younger artist in China today.
Ye Nan (born 1984 in Hangzhou) engages us directly with great, sometimes imponderable questions. In the series of prints collectively titled Phosphorous Red the artist has perfected a technique of applying phosphorous liquid, like that used in the manufacture of matches, onto the hand-made paper. These bold images contain a wide range of references including space travel and colonization, the principles of chemistry and physics, nationalism, politics and rock music. He succeeds in drawing together this potentially improbable material into an invigorating and highly-legible series of manifesto like declarations. In addition to the regular edition of three, there is also a series of unique prints modified by the artist.
Yuan Yuan (born 1984 in Beijing) is a painter who works with the very personal themes of friendship, nostalgia and fantasy. In 2008-2009, Chambers Fine Art New York showed a series of her diminutive oil paintings of friends that were notable for their spontaneity and charm. The new series for the current show also draws inspiration from informal photographs but here she delves ever more deeply into the imprecise realms of memory. These Polaroid inspired paintings, specially framed in Jingdezhen porcelain frames, capture moments among friends and are more indistinct and poetic than before. She has also produced bigger works in which her precise brushstrokes have become larger and more diffuse. Some of these show the same incident repeated indistinctly in movie-like ‘frames’. Others, painted from memory, seem to suspend random past moments before us in the present.
As the Chinese contemporary art movement comes of age this exhibition shows clearly not only how different schools of thought are emerging but also the importance of transmission from teacher to pupil. Both artists were fortunate to have studied under internationally acclaimed artists: Yuan Yuan under painter Yu Hong, professor at Beijing’s Central Academy of Fine Arts and Ye Nan under Qiu Zhijie, a prominent figure at the China Academy of Art in Hangzhou. While Yuan Yuan and Ye Nan’s works may be dissimilar they both ultimately offer, in a way that may emerge as characteristic of their generation, honest and personal statements on the world around them.
Accompanying the exhibition is a fully illustrated catalog with introductory essays by critic Philip Tinari as well as extended interviews: Qiu Zhijie with Ye Nan and Yu Hong with Yuan Yuan.
纽约前波画廊将相继举办叶楠个展《赤▪磷》及苑瑗近作展《褪色时光》。这两个迥然不同的个展将展示出今日中国年轻艺术家作品的多样性。
叶楠（1984年出生于杭州）喜欢直接探讨一些宏观问题。《赤▪磷》是由一系列以磷为材料的丝网版画组成。在这组作品中，他如同制作火柴一般把磷液浇在纸上。这些大胆的图像涉及了很多话题，例如太空航行、殖民化、化学或物理原理、国家主义、政治及摇滚音乐等。而他成功地用这几乎不可能的材料创造出了一系列充满活力且高度清晰的宣言般的作品。
苑瑗（1984年出生于北京）的画作主题都非常个人化，常涉及友谊、怀旧及幻想等主题。2008至2009年间，纽约前波画廊曾展出过苑瑗的一系列微型油画，令人值得注意的是这些描绘了她朋友的油画充满了自发性和魅力。此次为《褪色时光》创作的新系列也是从日常照片中获得灵感，不过她似乎比以前更深入地钻研了记忆的模糊地带。这些受宝丽莱照片启发的油画特地装裱在景德镇的陶瓷画框内，捕捉住了朋友间更为模糊诗意的瞬间。她还创作了一些更大的作品，在这些大作品中，她精确的笔触也同时变得更加成熟。部分作品描绘了同样的事件，模糊地重复出现在一些类似电影的“框架”中。其他描绘记忆的作品则似乎把过去一些随机的瞬间定格在我们面前。
随着中国当代艺术运动的日趋成熟，本展览将清晰地展现正在出现的不同思想流派，同时也说 明师生间授业的重要性。这两位艺术家都很幸运，分别拜于两位国际知名的艺术家门下：苑瑗师从北京中央美院教授兼画家喻红，叶楠则是杭州中国美术学院的重要人物邱志杰的门人。苑瑗和叶楠的作品也许迥然不同，但是他们都从某种程度上展现了他们这代人的特点，真实而个性化地评论他们的周边世界。
展览将同时出版苑瑗和叶楠的图录，图录中附田霏宇的相关评论，以及邱志杰与叶楠，喻红与苑媛的访谈文章。