On the afternoon of October 12, 2014, “In the Secular World ?Out of the Secular World – Qian Zhongping and Zhu Yamei Work Exhibition” opened at the Tree Gallery. It presents more than 30 works recently created by Qian Zhongping and Zhu Yamei, which is a show of the artists’ creative achievements over a similar phase. Yang Jianguo serves as the Academic Director of the exhibition, Qin Pei serves as the curator.

The couple, Qian Zhongping and Zhu Yamei are well-known artists, with different artistic styles, he inspects various aspects of the human world, caring about happiness and sorrow, the feelings of ordinary people, easily expressing objects, while she depicts the landscapes of Huzhou to express her feelings, being authentic and spiritual but they have always adhered to their own artistic personalities, thoughts and positions, in pursuit of the individual inner demands, and they appreciate each other, becoming a much-told story in art circles.

The exhibition lasts for 2 weeks.

In art circles many couples throw themselves into the career of art, though some couples naturally go together because of their common pursuit of art; there are also some couples that have diversified their painting language, artistic styles, creative feelings, but with living together for a long time this makes them influence each other, so that their paintings finally exhale a similar temperament; there are also some couples that always adhere to individual artistic personalities, thoughts, positions, pursuit of the individual inner demands, and appreciate each other, such as the couple Qian Zhongping and Zhu Yamei.

The couple Qian Zhongping and Zhu Yamei, Qian is good at figure painting, while Zhu is good at landscape painting; he cares about the secular world, while she is free from vulgarity. Qian Zhongping shows special favor to various aspects of city life, and his figures have various feelings of happiness and sorrow, lively reproducing his subtle observation of the surrounding characters, the figures perhaps wiggle their hips, or swing, or look back, which are familiar views to us all and make us laugh. Zhu Yamei loves cool mountains and sailing on the lake, the world in her brush refuses any secular thing to creep in, instead performing a pure landscape of clouds and water, seemingly to clear and purify our mind.

“This is the best of times, it was the worst of times;This is the wisdom of the times, it was the foolishness of the times;This is the era of trust, but also the age of suspicion;This is the season of Light, but also the season of darkness;This is the spring of hope, but also the winter of despair; Our promising, while little reason for hope; We are together toward heaven, we all go in another direction”. The classical sentences of the initial paragraph of “A Tale of Two Cities” by Charles Dickens is still working today, we live in a human world that we cannot be free from the interference of reality, passing by numerous fresh faces, ups and downs in the blundering secular world, while aspiring to have a place for placing the ideal, so it appears Qian Zhongping who records the secular, and Zhu Yamei who is eager to escape from the secular, use their own brushes and ink to experience the life in the secular and out of it.

Text by Qin Pei, translated by Chen Peihua and edited by Sue/CAFA ART INFO

Written at his apartment in Beijing on September 30, 2014

Photo by Tree Gallery