MadeIn Gallery
MadeIn Gallery is pleased to present Shang Liang’s solo exhibition “New Order” opening on the 13th of July, 2019, marking the first solo show of the artist in the gallery. The exhibition will feature Shang’s recent paintings, presenting visual symbolization of characters and exploration of painting language.
Receiving the rigorous training of the Oil Painting and the Experimental Art Department of the Central Academy of Fine Arts, Shang executed a large amount of paintings. Unlike traditional portraits, the character of the “juvenile superhuman” with mutated muscles became a specific visual symbol in her work. The exhibition will showcase the series “Good Hunter” and “Sofa Man” that the artist continuously developed over the past two years, as well as the new series “Boxing Man”: a character which gradually evolved from a figurative human body to an abstract figure with the effigy of a boxing glove, without face or organs. The “Boxing Man” is remote, it doesn’t adhere to any specific background, time or space, it emanates a certain form of power, composure and obstinacy. As a visual symbol, the strong muscles repeatedly depicted by Shang have been separated from the matrix to become a new independent species. They embody notions of heroism, physical strength, battle and conquest, and constitute a metaphor for power, loneliness and contradiction.
These mutated “Boxing Man”, exaggeratedly grown “Good Hunter” and the new series of “Couch Man” who are confined within sofas, all reflect the contradictory masculine imagination and humorous approach of these “superhumans” from the artist’s perspective. While constantly emphasizing these symbols, the artist also built her own unique visual language. The simple colors, direct and powerful image of these large-scale “boxing man”, the traces left by the repeatedly modified brushstrokes refine the contours of the subjects while evoking speed and movement, resulting in a calm yet bursting picture.
