NEW YORK, NY.- Klein Sun Gallery is presenting Inside-Outside, a group exhibition with paintings by Chen Yujun, Lu Zhengyuan, Huang Yishan, and Tang Yongxiang. Through cutting-edge contemporary paintings, the show encourages viewers to re-evaluate their first assessment and examine the ways in which the objects linger in one’s mind. Each painting is a process of expression and a path of discovery.
The seven works included in the show by Lu Zhengyuan focus only on various angles of a single fake wax-peach. The works, belonging to Subtleties of Creation series, depict this fake object to an extraordinarily realistic degree and in doing so, emphasize the keenest possible modes of observation. Grandly decorated by seemingly classical Western frames, Lu’s humor highlights the irony of the hyperrealist paintings’ fake subject matter. Painting a wax-peach so thoroughly explores not only physical observation, it also raises issues about contemporary society’s complex relationship to half-truths. Ultimately, Lu stimulates through these paintings an intense reflective process about the relationship between reality and fiction.
Bathing, an acrylic painting by Huang Yishan, draws attention to the exhibition title. There is a seemingly clinical, almost uninviting aspect to the piece found in its intense red hues and carefully constructed sense of void. Yet intrigue is also achieved in the piece, compelling us to look inside of the painting, beyond a centered door where an opaque figure looms. The painting appears simple, but it is rich in content—the significance of the aforementioned quiet figure is unknown and something to be explored by viewers. In this work, as well as three others, Huang successfully blurs the lines between reality and artistic absurdity through impeccable composition and his unique sensibilities.
Chen Yujun’s personal history of constant movement, from one home to another, is represented in two oil paintings. The flatness of Temporary Home No. 1 leads the viewers’ gaze to the corner of the portrayed room, adding dimension and convergence to the artwork. The controlled brushstrokes and repetitious stripes used to portray the walls provide a sensation of harmony, provocatively luring viewers to the tiles where the brushstrokes are more playful. A chair sits in the corner of the room like a pillar, creating substance and a sense of restraint. The muted color palette creates a peripatetic existence for spectators. Similar to this work, Temporary Home No. 2, is also a poetic visual expression of a drifting lifestyle.
Tang Yongxiang’s Concave Painting conveys the artist’s emotional resonance with a painting he found in a demolished building encountered during a trip to Shanxi. The original painting of a woman was traditionally western in its style, but is now reduced to basic forms juxtaposed with golden colors—an allusion to the Shanxi rubble. This context of destruction adds to the overwhelming emotions felt through the meticulous strokes of the piece. The delicately layered composition is captivating and contrasted by bold blues, framing the artwork’s focal point. The structure of the forms is fragmented and expresses a lively sculptural aspect of the piece. All five of Tang’s paintings included in the show have disjointed compositions, alluding to possibilities beyond the normal visual experience – relating to the ways in which our ideas develop from ideologies and other influences, and how we define them as meaningful.
Inside-Outside is curated by Janet Fong and is on view at Klein Sun Gallery from November 6 until January 3, 2015.
