Morningtide
AIKE, Shanghai
AIKE is delighted to present Fang Wei’s solo show “Morningtide”. This will be Fang Wei’s first comprehensive exhibition with AIKE with new paintings from the last three years since the artist returned to the rural life.
Fang Wei’s paintings neither depict specific objects nor subject matters. Instead, he sets free his wild and uninhibited fantasies by releasing vibrant colors and of emotions through the portrayals figures and scenes on canvas. For a long period of time, Fang has been intrigued with the inherent qualities of human nature, to which he takes an embracing attitude to address its excitement, fear, solitude, ecstasy and sorrows. With an absurd, exaggerated, surreal approach, Fang employs a palette of dense and gorgeous colors, as well as unique strokes of wash technique to construct an array of spiritual imaginations.
The exhibition unfolds from a set of figurative paintings of human silhouettes. Visualized through alternating postures and overlapping shadows, its vibrant colors blend together exquisite brushstrokes that extend onto the entire canvas, dissolving these visual elements into a background thriving with abundance or simplicity. The other series of paintings on view are images of geometric lines in blue and green interwoven with red and yellow color blocks, while the human figures are concealed within this forest-like environment. The second part of the show consists of paintings in stark contrast of red and green. Whether it is the small-scale portrait of Asura, the kissing figures, or the bewildering narrative of a dream-like scene on a large dimension canvas, or even the three pine trees in complete stillness, are embodiments of the theatrical tension of the supernatural.
The human figure has been one of the most important themes in Fang Wei’s practice. As soon as his brush touches the palette from which images of men, women, Buddha, and God come into being as colors come together through blending and permeation to allow his figures become indistinct and ambiguous. Multiple figures often appear on the larger dimension paintings that often dissolve or blend into the surrounding. Fang Wei’s paintings are characterized by a primitive force of mysticism and a distinct artistic language. He tries to capture the equivocal and the intuitive images from his mind, and these seemingly arbitrary images are in fact the result of the artist’s gradual mediation and rigorous control. Their narratives are multi-faceted and divergent, captivating as they are, a visual sense of hypnosis is at play among the flowing images.
In his practice, Fang Wei focuses on breaking through the setbacks from the properties of oil paints while he searches for conflicting tensions among the multiple dimensions on canvas. If we were to dive into his paintings, we’d be venturing into the mystical forest in the mountains unbeknown to anyone, where figures are ethereal, intimate yet detached, akin to human nature, replete of vicissitude and ephemerality. His paintings are defiant and transcendental, as if one stands under twilight at dawn as the sun rises from the horizon afar, and embraces the dismal, dreary earth from the night before, while the scouring sense of light stimulates one’s nerves ushering off the shores of fantasy.
Fang Wei, born to Shanghai in 1968, currently lives and works in Chongming, Shanghai. He graduated from Shanghai Arts & Crafts College in 1986, and went to Japan in the following year. Fang spent more than twenty years of his life in Tokyo, and then returned to Shanghai thereafter, throughout which he has been actively engaged in the fields of antique and contemporary art. Starting in 2008, Fang has been devoted to his artistic practice in painting. His recent solo exhibitions include “Hidden Earth” at Richard Koh Fine Art in Kuala Lumpur (2016), “Assassin” at BANK in Shanghai (2014), and Fang Wei Solo Exhibition at Shanghai Gallery of Art in Shanghai (2012).
