Shangliang: New Order

Exhibition

Exhibition: Shangliang:New Order 
Duration: 2019.07.13 - 2019.09.01
Address: 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.

Shang Liang, Boxing Man No.4, 2019, Oil on canvas

215 x 200 cm

Shang Liang, Boxing Man No., 2019, Oil on canvas

155 x 116 cm

About Shangliang

Shang Liang, born in Beijing in 1981, lives and works in Beijing and Shanghai. She graduated from the Oil Painting Department and the Experimental Art Department of the Central Academy of Fine Arts in 2004 and 2009. In recent years, notions of masculinity, heroism and the vocabulary that relates to them, such as power, strength and conquest, among others, have constituted major features in Shang’s works. Through repeated and textural brushstrokes she creates portraits, which unlike traditional ones, are based on specific characters as symbols revolving around these themes. Figures evolve through various series of paintings and sculptures, beginning with the "The Real Boy" series and followed by the series “Good Hunter”, “Sofa Man” and “Boxing Man”.

 

Her recent exhibitions include: Porsche “Young Chinese Artist of the Year” nominatees’ exhibition, Beijing Exhibition Hall, Beijing, China, 2019; “Extreme Mix” Guangzhou Airport Biennale, Guangzhou, China, 2019; “YOHOOD 2018 global trend of Carnival”, Shanghai World Expo exhibition hall, Shanghai, China, 2018; “PLAY”, MadeIn Gallery, Shanghai, China, 2018; “Form Consumption Over Substance”, MadeIn Gallery, Shanghai, China, 2017; “Brewer J.C. Jacobsen's Portrait Award-the 2015 Portrait Now!”, The Museum of National History, Copenhagen, Denmark, 2015; “One Of Few”, Xin Beijing Gallery, Beijing, China, 2016.


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