2018 | Perspectives In the Distance

Organizer: Three Shadows +3 Gallery

Academic advisor: Song Zhenxi

Opening: 17: 00 - 18: 00, March 24, 2018 

Duration: March 24, 2018 - May 23,2018

Venue: Caochangdi 155A, Chaoyang District, Beijing 100015 

Three Shadows Photography Art Centre

Three Shadows +3 Gallery is proud to present “Perspectives in the Distance”, a solo exhibition by artist Shao Wenhuan. Combinations of photography and painting, Shao's works are dark and kaleidoscopic puzzles of nature that surge with all usions to art history and the subjectivity of space.

It is easy to get absorbed into the worlds of Shao’s images. Photography is very much at the center, but he manages to conjure destabilized realities and alternate existences all the same. Stars, lakes, stones, the moon – these become hallucinatory landscapes of alienation, the universe turned inside-out. He turns away from the idea of a “correct” ordefinitive experience and blurs binaries: truth and fiction, existence and emptiness, certainty and the unknown.

In “Perspectivesin the Distance”, a large number of pieces meditate on forests and mountains encountered in Shao’s travels to the Yellow Mountains and Mount Fuchun (close to Hangzhou and famously depicted by the 14th century painter Huang Gongwang). Together, they constitute a metaphor with the trees as humans, the forests and mountains as society, and their disorder as a parallel to our own. Under the vast starry sky, we may believe we exist in an orderly universe, but its origin is fated to remain unknown.

While intervening in this debate about a true order, Shao also stresses the role of a sense of space in any such dispute. In works like Wings of a Phoenix Bird, the multidimensional rips of aluminum showcase Shao’s break from a single, black-and-white, subjective or objective worldview in his photography. It is not necessarily a rethinking of image consciousness (that is, the way the imageacts as a mirror) he strives for, but this rethinking of space.

Photographers often see the world with the camera by moving far and near, by which they share their own sense of seeing. They perceive the distance in forests, society and the universe as a kind of self-organizing order, so as to find the value of their own existence. This exhibition by Shao Wenhuan is about his gaze from afar, and the uncertain dream that stares back at him.

                                                                                                                                                                                    Shadowing. Thirty Square Meters, 2016-2017

                                                                                                                                        Mixed Media (Photography, gel silver emulsion painting, oil paint on linen)

201.5 x 153 cm                                                                                    

 鸾鸟之翼 No. 2 二拼 Wings of Phoenix, No. 2,  2016-2018                                                                        

Mixed Media (Photography, photosensitive paint of gelation silver emulsion, aluminium slices, oil paint on linen)                                                                       
142 x 160 cm                                                                       

Shao Wenhuan

1971   born in Hotan, Xinjiang Province.

2002   MA, China Academy of Art in Hangzhou, Hangzhou

While studying at the China Academy of Art in Hangzhou, he traveled to France and spent time at the l'École Nationale Supérieure d'Art (ENSA) in Dijon. After completing his degree, Shao remained at the China Academy of Art as an associate professor. 

He now lives and works in Hangzhou.

RECENT SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2017      “Breakthrough”, Han Feng Art Space, Shanghai

2016      “Membrane – A Way of Recreating ‘The Lies Within Truth’”, 1933Modern Art Space, Shanghai

2015      “All Is Quiet”, M97 Gallery, Shanghai

RECENT GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2018     “BrushScreen/Work” 2018 AMNUA Photography Exhibition, Art Museum of the Nanjing University of Art, Nanjing

             “Mountain Art” Joint Exhibition, New York China Institute, NewYork

2017     “ACollaboration With Father Time” Jimei x Arles Discovery Nomination Forum, Xiamen

       “So West Lake” The First Art Scene of West Lake Photo Exhibition,China Academy of Art, Hangzhou

2016     “ChinaWhispers” Art Exhibition, Bern Museum of Fine Arts, Switzerland

              “Insights” Third PhotoShanghai Exhibition, Shanghai

              “Floating IslandChronicles” Joint Exhibition, Hanart TZ Gallery, Hong Kong

              “On the Lake” Joint Exhibition, Han Yang Art Center, Hangzhou

          “Image Reconstruction” XVI Sea Horizon Painting and SculptureExhibition, China Art Museum, Shanghai

             “Another Kind of Scenery” Beijing Yang Museum, Beijing

             “Remolding” Dakar Biennale, Dakar

             “Poetic” 2016 Modern Invitational Photo Exhibition, Hangzhou

2015     “CHINA8 Modern Art Exhibition”, FolkwangMuseum, Germany

             “Illusion”, Ming Yuan Art Museum, Shanghai

            “Dust – Tough – Frame – Sea” Jimei Arles International PhotoExhibition, Xiamen

             “Hidden Strength” Art Exhibition, Beijing Yang Museum, Beijing

2014  “China Contemporary Photography 2009-2014”, Minsheng Art Museum, Shanghai

             "NewObscurity", +BTAP Tokyo Gallery, Beijing

   "Contemporary Oriental Dimension", the 5th Jinan International PhotographyBiennale, Jinan

       "The Decade of Chinese Contemporary Photography", the 10th Lianzhou Photography International Annual Exhibition, Lianzhou

             "Memory", the 2nd Italy and China Contemporary Art Biennale, 798 Art Center, Beijing

2013   “ClearStreams and Distant Mountains: Transformation of Chinese Contemporary Art”, MonicaArt Center, Barcelona

     "Inspirationand post-Flash", the First Beijing International Photography Biennale,Beijing

    "Farewellto Experience," the 9th Lianzhou International Photography Biennale,Lianzhou 

            "Difference:Experimental Art Exhibition by Young Artists", CAFA Art Museum, Hangzhou

2012      "Heart of the Nature: the First Italyand China Art Biennale", Milan

       "HousingLeak Marks: Contemporary Art Exhibition, Zhejiang Art Museum, Zhejiang

2011   "Nostalgia and Encounter: ContemporaryArt Touring Exhibition", Hangzhou, Nanjing, Chongqing,Chengdu

              "Alessandria Photo Biennale", Alessandria

              "MakingLandscape" City Biennial, Gaomi

           "MemoryStitching", Special Invite exhibition at Chengdu Biennale, L-Art Gallery, Chengdu

Whisk  (Details) , 2018                                                 

Mixed Media (Photography, gel silver emulsion painting, aluminium wires, oil paint, acrylic paint on linen)                                                
85 x 100 cm