Leo Gallery Shanghai
In the world of art, the power of the female cannot be overlooked. Female artists, with their sex-specific perspective, sentiments and dexterity, create extraordinary artworks one after another, demonstrating to contemporaries their passion and love of life. They believe that art and creation embodies values of life. Two Phoenixes on the wings, twittering in harmony. “Qiang Qiang” is the sound made by two Phoenixes. Since ancient times, phoenixes have always been associated with the female, imperial power andvitality, connoting the gentle strength of nobility, purity and beauty. Soft Power is a group exhibition series organized by Leo Gallery featuring female since 2011. The fifth Soft Power exhibition comes with the theme “Qiang Qiang”, show casing works of Chinese abstract painting artist Chen Lizhu, artists Zhang Xuerui and Zheng Wenxin, as well as Hong Kong artist Cheuk Wing Nam.
In Chen Lizhu’s Space Series, the artist creates a visible “spiritual space”. Using abstract expression and simple elements, Chen Lizhu constructs an intriguing visual landscape in the small painting, and at the same time guides the viewer to wander in it. Through this series, the artist opens up her work and attempts to provide viewers with the time of “reading” and “walking”, meanwhile creating a “space” for non-traditional viewing.
The work of Zhang Xuerui was inspired by the life experiences of artist’s mother, sisters and herself after the divorce of her parents. The act of flower cutting implies a common hurt they suffered. Seaming these numerous flowers together cost them a great deal of time; it required great patience and ceaseless labor of the whole family.
Artist Zheng Wenxin would like to serialise the surging fragmented information in away resembling illusion. Like piercing through an artificial barrier, Zheng Wenxin has tried to interpret people’s most tender emotional world. Meanwhile, she hopes to free the self-bounding spirit and revives a flexible space which she enjoys in order to create works with a more open-minded attitude and multiple perspectives towards paintings.
Cheuk Wing Nam’s installation makes masterful use of sound and light to create an immersive environment that stirs feelings of anxiety and urgency. The sound sculpture is visually evocative of moths to a flame, desperately seeking what their deaths will be, or fireflies in a jar, struggling to get out. Standing amidst this alcove of white noise, one is as if another fragment enclosed by a veil of sound.
Artist Chen Lizhu, Zhang Xuerui, Zheng Wenxin and Cheuk Wing Nam are young ladies with free and independent spirits and a clear mind keen on critical thinking. They continue to explore the vitality in different artist media and in the areas they specialize in, expressing their understanding of this world using the artistic devices they have experience with. Although they come from different artistic arenas, they blossom with equal glamour in the pursuit of art.
