16 Bloomfield Terrace, London SW1W 8PG, UK
This is the first time that these three figurative painters have exhibited together in London. They provide us with a valuable opportunity to become aware of the breadth of pictorial, intellectual and social themes being explored by leading artists in China.
All three are ink painters who have long been recognised in China as having expanded the frontiers of the genre to produce work that is relevant and meaningful to today’s society without jettisoning its intimate links with the classical canon.
The subject matter in each case could not be more different. Li Jin’s buoyant paintings express the joy of life and emphasise that its source is in simple pleasures, not the crude materialism rampant in modern China.
Liu Qinghe also is deeply sceptical about the orientation of contemporary mores and poignantly depicts humans left behind by unfettered capitalism.
And Wu Yi is the satirist similarly alert to the darker side of Chinese economic growth but focussing with merciless humour on the leaden bureaucracy and its puny insignificance in the context of history.
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