Interrogating Dreams
Katrine Levin Galleries, London
Exhibition Venue: Coningsby Gallery
30 Tottenham Street, London W1T 4RJ
Dates: 30 Oct-4 Nov 2017
http://www.katrinelevin.com/gao-xiang-exhibition
Showcasing for one week only during Asian Art Week London, the show is a rare opportunity to view the works of this acclaimed Chinese artist in London.
Gao Xiang: Interrogating Dreams is a lyrical web of Chinese tradition, mythology and modernity, balancing between dreams and reality, abstract and figurative.
Gao Xian, “The Dreams – The Cowherd Star”, 2016, acrylic on canvas, 120 x 60 cm (image courtesy the artist and Katrine Levine Galleries)
The horse has a dominant role in Chinese tradition and history. In the Pagoda of Horses subset of the Dreamsseries, Gao Xiang renders the horses in the form of Tang Dynasty terracotta figurines stacked as a pagoda, a symbol rich in cultural and Buddhist meaning. Painted in red, white and black – a reference to traditional ink pigments - the pagoda of horses symbolises the sprit of the seasons, the strength of tradition and its place in contemporary society, and also the human spirit.
Gao Xian, “The Dreams – Triones”, 2016, acrylic on canvas, 180 x 160 cm (image courtesy the artist and Katrine Levin Galleries)
Sometimes pictured atop the horse pagoda is a small figure of a man, standing on the millennia of history, straining to see far into the future – his and all of ours.
For Gao Xiang, the horse is also a mystical force representing both the universe and his soul. It is a power that can be contained or unleashed, gentle or ferocious. This strength is often contrasted with the much smaller figure of a man.
Gao Xiang’s installations follow the theme of his paintings while exploring the interaction between the object and its environment. The transparency of glass allows for almost infinite experiential immersions as the work influences the background and the background influences the perception of the work.
Gao Xiang’s landscape paintings interrogate dreams through the power and movement of ancient trees and the timeless grandeur of the cliffs and coastline in Normandy and China. “Set off by the magnificent and mutable sky and sea, the white cliffs can have an infinite variety of tones, but … around noon … in the stable light, the colors of the cliffs do not change and there are no hints of the passage of time.”
Gao Xiang, Horse Pagoda, 2010, oil and acrylic on canvas, 61 x 46 cm (image courtesy the artist and Katrine Levine Galleries)
About Gao Xiang
Gao Xiang was born in 1971 in Kunming, the capital of China’s Yunnan Province. He holds a Ph.D. from the prestigious China Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA) in Beijing, and splits his time between studios in Kunming and Beijing.
Gao Xiang’s works are collected by museums in Asia and Europe; his installations have been commissioned for public spaces from China to Paris; and he has been widely exhibited by galleries and museums in Asia and internationally, including France and the United States. This is his first exhibition in the U.K.
Gao Xiang, “Silent Cliffs 6″, acrylic on canvas, 40 x 30cm 2014 (image courtesy the artist and Katrine Levin Galleries)
Gao Xiang, “Lookout”, 2011, silk print, ed. 5:20, 70 x 30 cm (image courtesy the artist and Katrine Levin Galleries)
