randian | 燃点

Don Gallery is delighted to present Mí Shēng: Qu Fengguo Solo Exhibition, the second one-person show at the gallery by the artist, comprising twelve abstract paintings of various dimensions that completed in 2015.

Titled Mí Shēng (弥生), a word portraying luxuriant plants in Chinese, also a way of saying the month of March in Japanese (as Yayoi)，this delicately organized exhibition offers a clue of time, aiming to evoke the feeling of season in the viewers. All the works at the exhibition are from the ongoing project Four Seasons, a series of significant abstract paintings dating from 2005.

Qu is an artist who feels the changes of time. With the painterly lexicon, he releases and turns his perceptions into tension, rhythm, delicacy and colourfulness onto the canvas. Every painting is a result of meticulous imagery making process within a certain period of time. Thus, each piece tells its own journey and character, as given by the passing time. Space, especially urban environment, is also crucial to understand Qu Fengguo’s art. As a city nurtures contemporary art, Shanghai is irreplaceable in the Chinese contemporary art world. From the beginning of 20th century, influenced by urban life style and modern thought, local artists had started to explore the artistic language of avant-garde. Although living in Shanghai, Qu prefers to keep himself in a comfortable distance with it. His paintings, either large or small, inherit the historical practice of art and urbanism, but integrate with personal vocabularies to represent the borderless thinking with concise and non-figurative visual expressions.

Qu Fengguo’s abstracts originate from his inner heart, but concern the outer world. “It would be more accurate to say that in addition to Qu Fengguo’s internal sense of ‘vividness and vitality’, ” commented by Japanese renown art critic Toshio Shimizu, “it was his access to an unfettered spiritual environment which allowed him to tap into the energy of the cosmos and create paintings that manifest such individuality. ”

Qu Fengguo, born in Liaoning Province in 1966, graduated from stage design department of Shanghai Theater Academy, is an active figure in China’s contemporary art scene. His consistent exploration of abstract languages, rich use of colour, multiple layers of paint, along with his unique way of painting without brush have revealed an acute sense of time and space. Since 1990s, Qu Fengguo’s work has been widely exhibited in numerous art institutions throughout the world, including Yokohama Museum of Art (Japan, 1993), 3rd Shanghai Biennale (China, 2000), Montclair State University Art Gallery (U.S.A., 2000), Künstlerhaus Vienna (Austria, 2002), Irish Museum of Modern Art (Ireland, 2004), National Art Museum of China (China, 2008), and Ming Contemporary Art Museum (China, 2015), etc. Recently, his solo exhibitions have been seen at Line Gallery (Beijing, 2015), Yibo Gallery (Shanghai, 2015), Don Gallery (Shanghai, 2013), and Beijing Art Now Gallery (Beijing, 2007). His works have been included into the collection of both private collectors and art institutions such as Shanghai Art Museum (Shanghai), White Rabbit Gallery (Sydney), Guangdong Museum of Art (Guangzhou), Long Museum (Shanghai) and Haha Contemporary Art Museum (Beijing).

Qu Fengguo lives and works in Shanghai. He teaches at Shanghai Theater Academy.