10 Chancery Lane Gallery is proud to present the first exhibition in Hong Kong of Beijing artists Ren Jing and Xiao Zheluo.
Artists Ren Jing and Xiao Zheluo represent a new generation of artists in China whose works are deeply introspective. They relay both sensitivity and sincerity to their environment and those around them. Somehow their works are brief solitary insights that evoke rich emotional states of being within a contemporary world as well as their lives in current day China. Highly personal and intimate are their works and of exceptional technique, we are proud to exhibit their first show in Hong Kong.
Our existence in this world is bound by a strong, and ever more complicated, relationship between our surrounding and us. As we try to alter the surrounding to cater our needs, we at the same time are being dominated by it. When there are many “selves” fighting for their own existence, the surrounding is twisted to become all too unfamiliar and distant to us. Two young Chinese painters have tried to withdraw themselves from this world, by being an onlooker to pick up the stories behind the almost-neglected people, incidents and objects in this society. Through this change of vision, they hope to re-investigate the idea of self.
After years of practice in careful and delicate paintings, Ren Jing started to question himself the meaning of painting. The work presented in this exhibition attempts to present his understanding on “reality” based on an imagined scene. He explains, “Image is an important source for us to obtain information, however it also affects our perception; No image can fully deliver the message it carries, it can only be an instant, an one-sided view.” Ren Jing believes that there are multiple causes for any incident, likewise, each viewer bears their own history and corresponding viewpoints when they interpret the work. Therefore, he chose to step behind the visual incident and tell a story without judgment or criticism.
Ren is obsessed with the topics about existence of life and the relationship of time and space. This can be seen from the choice of scenes in his paintings: vets, slaughtermen and ambulancemen dealing with living or dying lives, and alike. He picked up some of the most ordinary moments to present the uncertainty and helplessness of life. All these are proof of existence of life. The paintings are like patches of images, dividing up the realistic scene; bright yellow lines are like blades cutting through the murky surface, intruding into the original visual. What are they doing? Where will they go from here? It does not matter at all. What’s important is how viewers interpret it and if they could be prompted to think about the relativity of reality.
Ren Jing was born in 1975 in Xuan Cheng, Anhui. He graduated from the Oil Painting department at the China Academy of Art and has been exhibited in China, England, Japan and Germany. He was also presented at SCOPE Basel 2008. He currently lives and works in Beijing.
XIAO ZHELUO
Xiao Zheluo was trained in traditional Chinese ink painting in her early days, with a strong admiration for the masters in the Song, Yuan and Ming dynasties. She does not fancy engaging in social events, rather, she loves standing aside observing the people and objects that are as quiet and neglected as she is. She calls herself, “a negative optimist,” and one can see loneliness, sorrow and depression fill up her canvases. This may be a common background she shares with the people in her generation: feeling lonely for being the only child in the family, frustrated in competing for jobs, and confused with the fast changes in the natural and cultural environments. She said, “Our generation grows up in the age when material life is rapidly changing. The adults may feel pleased with the improvement of their life, however youngsters lose their memories. That’s why we love nostalgia, we are keen on looking for a cultural identity.”
Xiao’s creation is everything about life, it is the history and the story of those objects that attract her. In the past few years, she has been working on a project to explore “objects that are strangely familiar.” That may include the concrete bench on the road side, the cedar tree near home that is sprouting again after being burnt down, the old sofa and study desk that was left on the corner, and the sign of a restaurant in a small town where youngsters have all left for work in big cities. She loves removing the background of the object being depicted so that it can stand free in its own time and space, and by this she gives dignity to the object as it deserves. It is almost like an acknowledgement she gives to the self-pitying young soul. “Everyone has their youth no matter which generation you were born to. It was a time with high self- consciousness. As they grow, they leave behind the sentiment of their youth and take on social responsibilities, that is when they begin to evolve.”
Xiao Zheluo loves painting with a mute, almost dull palette, yet at the same time she leaves a vast blank area on her canvases, a technique used in traditional Chinese ink painting. The blank area is like a space for meditation, however the suppressed emotion seems to linger on and on. She is not keen on telling the sorrows of the youth, for it is just a stop in the growth journey and eventually it will pass. As Xiao moves on from her confused young days, she walked past the period when she can only see her own struggles in youth days. Enlightenment is seen in her new work, yet she maintains her sensitivity and sincerity in life.
Xiao Zheluo was born in 1983 in Chengdu, Sichuang. In 2006 she graduated from the Chengdu Academy of Fine Art and has since participated in exhibitions in Beijing, Shanghai, Sichuang and Seoul. She currently lives and works in Beijing.
The artists will be in Hong Kong from Tuesday 11 March to Saturday 15 March and will attend the exhibition opening.
About 10 Chancery Lane Gallery
10 Chancery Lane is one of the pioneering galleries on the Hong Kong scene. Founded in 2001 the gallery presents emerging and historically important movements in art across Asia-Pacific, supporting the development of the careers of the most exciting artists in the region including Dinh Q. Le, Vietnam, The Propeller Group, Vietnam, Huang Rui, China, Wang Keping, France/China and Manit Sriwanichpoom, Thailand. The gallery is committed to documenting the development of the highest quality art in the region through survey exhibitions, talks, forums and publishing. There is a strong curatorial focus. Important shows are conceived and hosted with some of Asia’s leading curators, Feng Boyi (China), Erin Gleeson (Cambodia), Zoe Butt (Vietnam) and Iola Lenzi (Thailand). There is a particular focus on artist from the Asia Pacific including from South East Asia and visual and performance art from China including that of the 1979 Beijing early art movement “The Stars”. Represented artists have important museum shows. Dinh Q. Le was the first Vietnamese artist to exhibit at MOMA New York in June 2010., while the Australian artist John Young was shown at the Guggenheim in New York. Gallery artists have exhibited in the Venice Biennale, Documenta, Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, Fukuoka Triennial, Singapore Biennial, Guangzhou Triennial and Busan Biennale. Four artists represented by the gallery were included in dOCUMENTA13. 10 Chancery Lane Gallery supports the development of contemporary art in Hong Kong as a founding member of the Hong Kong Galleries Association and through its HKFOREWORD Series, showcasing the work of young artists from the city.
