Exhibition Duration: September 7 to October 26, 2014
Participating Artist: Ye Hongxing
Opening Reception: Sunday September 7th from 3pm to 7pm
Venue: Art+ Shanghai Gallery
Exhibition Brief
“Everybody must have a fantasy.” – Andy Warhol
Contemporary China exists in a state of fantasy, and artist Ye Hongxing is no exception. Art+ Shanghai Gallery’s exhibition The Fantasy Factory: New Works by Ye Hongxing explores the creative process of fantasy and the fantastic through mixed media works of stickers on canvas. Beijing-based artist Ye Hongxing plays with the world she perceives around her, injecting pop culture and a sense of sardonic humor into her works like a modern-day female Andy Warhol. At once whimsical and witty, her works cannot help but tease: What’s real and what’s fantasy? Do you ever know for sure?
Ye Hongxing’s exhibited works feature stickers – little images of smiling blue bunnies, fluffy cupcakes, and so forth that capture the innocence of childhood and resonate regardless of culture or generation. Ye Hongxing mosaics these bright, playful pieces of pop culture into compositions of contemporary confusion, using stickers as a gateway into the realm of environmental pollution, fading traditional cultures, and the glossy glamorization of a consumer society. The Fantasy Factory is the tedious production of hundreds of stickers on canvases and the bold open-ended statements that beg for discussion among exhibition-goers. Fantasy is ideological flight of fancy, but more fundamentally, it is the re-contextualization of the real in a fantastical mode. Fantasy is not devoid of reality; it is an extension of it. The fantastical is that which commands awe and captivates thought, where menageries of images, thoughts, and discoveries battle harmoniously in rich compositions, and where the mythical melds with problem-riddled reality. There is a sense of playful layering and weaving, blurring boundaries between fact and fiction, sight and illusion, smiles and smirks, to be simultaneously individual and universal.
Part ideal, part statement, and part provocation, Ye Hongxing’s Fantasy Factory mixes bits of her Beijing surroundings with a healthy dose of imagination and mindful creativity to be relatable to a wide audience and wonderfully immersive in both conceptual depth and contemporary commentary. Gas masks, kama sutra, models, tigers, stilettos, oh my. Mingling across her canvases, these alluring images of polluted skies and over-the-top fashions are at once real and fantastical, playing off the real yet surreal world of contemporary China. We welcome you into her world, to get lost in The Fantasy Factory.
About the Artist
Ye Hongxing was born in 1972 in Guangxi Province, China, and received her Master of Arts from the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing. Her works in sculpture, oil painting, mixed media, and installation are often reactions to her surroundings and employ traditional Chinese motifs with a contemporary aesthetic. Visually sublime scenes layer oppositions of tranquility and frenzy, while playing with distance, narrative, culture, and societal and environmental issues. Ye Hongxing describes her work as “a reaction to the swift change of China’s social system,” focusing on fusion and confusion in China’s rapidly changing society. With an intricate sense of composition and perspective, Ye Hongxing creates works that weave the real with the visionary.
Ye Hongxing was selected by the Curator of the Asian Art Museum in California and the Director of Art Cologne as one of China’s top young emerging artists. Her work is widely collected by high-profile figures within China and she has been steadily gaining international attention through exhibitions and prestigious art fairs in East Asia, the United States, and Europe. Ye Hongxing has recently exhibited in London, Miami, New York, and Shanghai, and her installation piece at the India Art Fair in 2014 was considered one of the fair’s highlights.
About Art+ Shanghai Gallery
Founded in 2007 and located within walking distance to Shanghai’s famous Bund area, Art+ Shanghai Gallery is a dynamic art space dedicated to the exhibition, promotion, and development of Chinese contemporary art. Art+ Shanghai Gallery showcases a range of established and emerging contemporary artists from within China and abroad, stimulating and celebrating the diversity of the sprawling contemporary art scene. In addition to holding group and solo exhibition at its new space at 191 South Suzhou Road, Art+ Shanghai Gallery offers art consultation services and participates in art fairs, including SH Contemporary in September 2014 and Art Stage Singapore in January 2015.
Press Inquiries
For general inquiries, please contact the gallery directly at gallery@artplusshanghai.com. For specific media-related inquiries, such as further images or information regarding the artist or exhibition, please contact Bonny Yau, curator and media director, at bonny@artplusshanghai.com.
Art+ Shanghai Gallery
191 South Suzhou Road
Huangpu District, Shanghai
Tel: +86 21 6333 7223
Tuesday to Sunday, 10 AM – 7 PM (Closed Monday)
