The tea house is pleased to announce that we will be opening our new exhibition "Soul Catcher" on October 12, 2021, which is curated by Wang Yuhan and features paintings by eight artists, including Song Kun, Ma Ke, Li Jikai, Kang Haitao, Wei Jia, Chen Ke, Lou Shenyi and Zhao Yanbin. The exhibition runs until November 14. The location is in The Tea House, No. 4 Ceramic Street, Jiuxianqiao, Chaoyang District, Beijing
According to legend, the "soul" is an immaterial thing that is attached to the human body as the master. Professor Zhou Guoping has made many expositions on the soul, the most important of which is "the solitude of the soul", because "the soul walks with only one goal, that is, to find God, and the reason why the soul can only walk alone is because everyone can only find his God if he seeks for himself." "This sentence is also incomprehensible, human beings are different individuals, the purpose of life is not the same, even if there is similarity and similarity, there will be differences due to individual differences." The solitude of the soul is a philosophical proposition, and we usually interpret it in literary, artistic, religious, and even scientific terms.
In the "Soul Catcher" exhibition, the eight artists are not limited to the abstract concept of "soul" as an object of expression, but "capture the soul" as a way and language of expression, they capture the flash of "soul" through boring thousands of repetitive brushstrokes, they focus on the soul and private memory, soul and death, soul and space, subconscious and imagination.
Although "catching the soul" may be a momentary action, it requires long-term, continuous care for oneself and the surrounding environment, which some people have ignored or often forgotten, but these soul catchers have never stopped. As Hemingway described Santiago in The Old Man and the Sea, "Every part of him looks old, except for the eyes." Those eyes, as blue as the sea, were pleasant, not discouraged. ”
Chen Ke Hat Watercolor on Paper 39.5 x 54.4 cm 2013
Li Ji Kaiyun with cotton acrylic on canvas 70 x 70 cm 2017
Ma Ke Untitled Acrylic on canvas 70 x 140 cm
Song Kun Taboo - Lip Cover No.1 Painting Installation, Oil on Canvas, Laser Belt, Acrylic Cover 40 x 30 cm 2018
Song Kun The Depth of a Thousand Kisses No.11 Oil on canvas 45 x 65 cm 2011
Vega Nameless Acrylic on Paper 37.5 x 24.5 cm 2020
Zhao Yanbin Blow Green Arrow Gum Paper Acrylic 4.9 x 8.9 cm x 6 2020
About the curators
Wang Yuhan
Wang Yuhan, born in 1993, lives in Beijing. Graduated from Sotheby's School of art with a Master's degree in Arts Management. Director of BiasEd Gallery.
About the artist
Chen Ke was born in 1978 in Tongjiang, Sichuan Province. He graduated from the Sichuan Academy of Fine Arts in 1998 with a bachelor's degree, from the Sichuan Academy of Fine Arts with a bachelor's degree in oil painting in 2002, and graduated from the oil painting department of the Sichuan Academy of Fine Arts in 2005. His works have been widely exhibited worldwide and are collected by franks-Suss Collection in London, ENGLAND, sigg Collection of BSI Swiss Foundation, Lorenzo Sassoli de Bianchi in Italy, Shenzhen Art Museum in China, minsheng Art Museum in Shanghai, China and other institutions.
In her early works, she often depicts a cute and lonely girl in a surreal time and space, with a slightly inedible posture, or against the upside-down reality, or expressing a feeling for the passing of time. Since 2011, Chen can frida, Monroe and other women as the prototype of the works, opened up her new painting subjects, and more actively absorbed the nutrients in the classical painting of the East and the West, forming a gradually mature painting appearance. In 2017, she began to create a series of works related to her father's true emotions, projecting her own life experience and understanding more directly into the works.
Kang Haitao was born in Chongqing in 1976 and currently lives and works in Chengdu.
Since 2000, Kang Haitao has been exploring the oil painting creation of the "Night Scene" series, paying attention to detail, depicting mostly familiar scenes and everyday things around him, such as a forest, a door, some simple houses... The work draws on the "ink accumulation" technique in traditional Chinese landscape painting to create a quiet, strange and mysterious picture atmosphere.
While creating the "Night Scenes" series, Kang Haitao also continued to explore abstract painting. His abstract works start from a blank and nihilistic, and the creative process is almost meditative, in opposition to the strong opposition of the "Night Scene Series", in which he faces neither a given visual object, nor any psychological experience (conscious or unconscious), or even the imagery that appears at a certain stage on the picture. His abstract paintings rely on intuition and spirituality to complete the final presentation in the constant affirmation and denial. In Kang Haitao's daily work, the "Night Scene" and "Abstract" series are carried out at the same time, and the two complement each other and fit each other to achieve a kind of existence completeness.
Kang Haitao has participated in many international exhibitions in Hong Kong, the United States, South Korea, the Czech Republic, Italy and other places. His works are collected by the Long Museum, the Shanghai 21st Century Minsheng Art Museum, and the Wuhan Art Museum.
Li Jikai was born in 1975 in Chengdu, Sichuan. He graduated from the Oil Painting Department of Sichuan Academy of Fine Arts in 1999. In 2020, he graduated from the China Academy of Arts with a doctorate degree in fine arts. He currently teaches at Hubei Academy of Fine Arts.
Li Jikai is an important representative of the "new cartoon generation" in post-70s art, and his paintings have always been known for their spiritual brushstrokes and poetic temperament. He not only continues the transformation of "political pop" in the image of the 90s and pushes it to a new stage, but also makes the work have a "new painting" quality in the narrative and conceptual expression of the image, organically combining the subjective consciousness of the image and the self with the temperament of the "meditator". In 2000, he began to draw "children", from happiness ideals, daydreaming, meditation, neuroticism, all the way to competing with some specific things and establishing a sense of intimacy, showing the inner spiritual process of the post-70s generation. "Little Boy" has become li Jikai's self-portrait and the entrance to his intervention in time, childhood, contemporary society, and dreams, and the picture has both the general sentimentality of the last century and the vivid new expressionist color.
Li Jikai has participated in international exhibitions in the United Kingdom, Singapore, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, the United States, Spain and other places. His works have been collected by important art institutions and private collections at home and abroad, such as the Long Museum of Art, He Xiangning Art Museum, Today Art Museum, Guangdong Museum of Art, Wuhan Art Museum, and New Kapi MoCA.
Lou Shenyi was born in 1973 in Shangyu, Zhejiang. He graduated from the Affiliated High School of China Academy of Art in 1993 and the Mural Department of the Central Academy of Fine Arts in 1997. Since 1997, he has successively taught at the Affiliated High School of the China Academy of Art and the Mural Department of the China Academy of Art. He now lives and works in Hangzhou.
Lou Shenyi graduated from the Mural Painting Department of the Central Academy of Fine Arts in 1997, and in the past 20 years, he has carried out a highly diverse artistic creation through different media and painting languages, and in his recent paintings, he has integrated dazzling colors with simple and clear brushstrokes to form a personalized intuitive painting style, showing the artistic concept of freedom and frankness with a seemingly relaxed and undifferentiated visual experience.
Born in 1970 in Zibo, Shandong Province, Ma Ke graduated from the Painting Department of Tianjin Academy of Fine Arts with a bachelor's degree in 1994, taught at the Oil Painting Department of Tianjin Academy of Fine Arts from 1994 to 2002, seconded to the Ministry of Culture to Eritrea in Northeast Africa from 1998 to 1999, and graduated from the Oil Painting Department of the Central Academy of Fine Arts in 2005 with a master's degree. He currently lives and works in Beijing.
Ma Ke did not confine himself to a single thought process, nor did he consider a grander narrative. Instead, he turns to a more fragmented reality and tries to express its complexity. His paintings present a constructed reality, a "reality" that is taken for granted and frustrated, akin to a spiritual allegory. In his recent work, the artist condenses his "sense of reality" into a mysterious, unexplainable realm.
Born in 1977 in Baotou, Inner Mongolia, Song Kun graduated from the Third Studio of the Oil Painting Department of the Central Academy of Fine Arts of China in 2006 with a master's degree. The works are mainly paintings, and at the same time combine music scenes, Music Videos, installations and other methods.
Song Kun's works have always contained an important concept: "stream of consciousness narrative" and "subconscious synaesthesia", which are important features of her creation and the inheritance of Chinese oriental aesthetics. She never tries to provide any fixed symbols or ideas, but proposes a chinese independent sample at this stage for the proposition "how to feel the experiential cognition and rich emotions that life gives". "Her firmness and self-confidence allow her paintings to borrow language from music, sound, imagery and other aspects, so that painting can obtain a special narrative energy."
In recent years, Song Kun's artistic creation has entered a new stage, experimentally integrating contemporary subculture and religious elements with her creative system, forming a unique sample that is closer to her personal temperament.
Wei Jia was born in 1975 in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, in 1999 the Lithograph Studio of the Central Academy of Fine Arts, while winning the most important lithograph awards at home and abroad, the rigor and rationality of lithograph creation have also become Wei Jia's tiredness, limited scale, complex production process, "can only succeed and can not fail" Dogma, making Wei Jia more and more yearning for the freedom and ease of free swinging on the canvas.
Since 1999, he has been teaching in the Printmaking Department of Sichuan Academy of Fine Arts, and in 2016, he has been the deputy director of the Printmaking Department of Sichuan Academy of Fine Arts, and has long been committed to the exploration of the contemporary context of printmaking, and has been widely committed to the public field of printmaking art and the experiment of innovative disciplinary directions.
In 2010, he won the "BMW China 2009 Contemporary Art Rights List" Annual Growth Artist Award, in 2009 he won the "2009 Contemporary Art Rights List" Annual Growth Artist Award, in 2008 he won the "2007 AAC Art China" Annual Influential Young Artist Award, in 2003 he won the "First Beijing International Printmaking Biennale" Gold Medal, the "8th Copperplate, Lithograph, Silkscreen Printmaking Exhibition" Gold Medal, and the 2001 "7th Copperplate, Lithograph, Silkscreen Printmaking Exhibition" Gold Medal. His works are collected by the National Art Museum of China, shanghai art museum, CAFA Art Museum, Shenzhen Art Museum, Guan Shanyue Art Museum, Sichuan Art Museum, Sichuan Academy of Fine Arts Art Museum.
Born in 1991 in Henan, Zhao Yanbin graduated from the School of Experimental Art of the Central Academy of Fine Arts in 2014, and his works have been widely exhibited in art institutions in Beijing, Hong Kong, Taipei and other art institutions, and now lives in Beijing. Major solo exhibitions: Gallery Liusa Wang (Paris) in 2017 and Me and Us (Mingtai Space, Beijing) in 2016.
Zhao Yanbin is an artist who uses his own feelings to show our childhood with paintings. Recalling the things we thought about when we were young, or what we experienced, we also present the things that students who are now in school imagined or known through the way of questioning, in the unique way of expression of the artist. His work is somewhat different from what we generally understand as contemporary painting, and he uses a customary language that is popular with ordinary people. And among them, there is a very profound meaning. When we enter the picture, we will feel the meticulousness and depth of the author's thinking
Located in the ceramic 1st Street of Beijing's 798 Art District with a strong cultural atmosphere, "Tea House" is a collection of tea tasting, tea ware exhibition and sales, tea culture promotion institutions co-founded by a number of well-known artists, designers, gallerists and curators, with the intention of extending the creativity of contemporary art into the field of life from the common interests, providing a display and sharing point of various cultural forms, and building a lifestyle belonging to contemporary China.