While embracing the year of 2013, MoCA,Shanghai sincerely invites two Chinese artists Tian Wei and Qiu Jie, who have livedin oversea countries for a long time, to present you a refreshing joint exhibition. Though their perspectives and styles differ from each other, their works reveal same profound life comprehension.MoCA Shanghai wishes to bring the audience to a self-reflecting, peaceful journey for mind through this exhibition.
Tian Wei started learning calligraphy when he was a child,therefore traditional Chinese artistic skill naturally enhanced his artistic language. After living, studying and working in America for many years and also under the influence of oriental and western culture, he combined oil painting and ink , started to draw western characters with the techniques of Chinese calligraphy. There is a profound philosophy in each of his work. In recent years, his works has become freer and freer via different format of media, however the central message that these works represent remains consistent. Tian Wei hopes through his work, audience enjoy the aesthetics which is expected to be rooted in Chinese’ spirit and beliefs, namely a philosophy connects different perspectives. His works bridge different cultures form east and west.
Qiu Jie’s works would appear heavy and rather complicated. You may find, in his works, a blonde who fits into the typical stereotype pin-up poster girl stands with a slogan which is often seen during China’s cultural revolution era, and a couple of Chinese and English characters and letters that are placed in a strange order…Usually Qiu Jie picks one corner of a piece ofpaper as the starting point and then slowly expands to another piece of paper like a growing organism. He manages to picture all threads and ideas together: a dream, a memory, a live object, etc. All of these make his works realistic and somehow surrealistic. His canvas shows how a Chinese who lives his life in the Western world feel about with his unique expression, his canvas actually creates the emotions mixing disorder, absurdness and even ambiguity.
Both Tian Wei and Qiu Jie were born almost at the same unique period of time in China. They started their journey to the West, experienced different cultures in America and Europe; ontheir way, they felt confused and even lost when trying to find their sense of belongingness. The overall environment in China has now becomes more internationalized and opened; where different cultures and ideas seem to achieve the peak time for interacting and impacting on each other, thus we sincerely hope our audience may reflect a little and reach to some common understandings through their works.
