Born in 1986 in Wuhan, China, lives and works in Beijing, China.
“My paintings resemble a form of collection. What I collect is not the objects I paint or the experiences I have lived through. I collect the time I spend painting these artworks; it is a collection of my own ‘existence.’ It is my personal and emotionally charged way of observing these moments.
‘Calmness’ is my mode of expression, while inner ‘restlessness’ is my emotion. I infuse this emotion into the pigments through the strokes of my brush. There is a line by the English poet Ted Hughes that I particularly like: ‘The whispers in the ear go farther than the loud clamor.’ This ‘calmness’ is the mode of expression I choose now. I want to convey the contradictory forces between this ‘calmness’ and ‘restlessness’ by continually ‘adjusting’ and placing them on the canvas, using a ‘whispering’ approach to express my emotions. Perhaps this ‘calmness’ is the ‘invisible’ clue I leave within my artworks. When I talk about ’emotion,’ it is closely related to cognitive activities of the mind, a manifestation or attitude of self-awareness. Strauss once said, ‘All sorts of surface cultural phenomena are the products of the structure of the human mind, the unconscious and logical structure of the mind.’ These unconscious, logical structures of the mind are deeply touching.
Silverpoint pen has been the material I have continuously used for creation in recent years. I am amazed by the delicacy and elegant sheen of this material in painting, and I have always liked the metallic feel of silver, which still retains warmth. So, in recent years, I have replaced the softer graphite with this metallic material. The marks left by the scratch of this metal, after oxidation, have a unique sense of light. It is cool yet carries a kind of subtle warmth, this contradictory gentleness and enduring quality have deeply captivated me.”
– Wang Zibo
Willow Art Space 