The light

slid in through the crevice

greeted

the damp grass

Bright

White

It is painting

— Wang Jun 2021.02.20

A Thousand Plateaus Art Space is pleased to present Wang Jun's solo exhibition The Motion of Light from March 13 to April 20, 2021, featuring the artist's new and recent works.

For many years, Wang Jun has been entangled in different aspects involved in the term "painting". After the discussion about painting methods and the mapping of his own painting clues in two previous solo exhibitions at A Thousand Plateaus ("Flashback", 2016; "Sphere", 2018), The Motion of Light returns to a clear theme: Landscape, more specifically, an unnamed forest. The work starts from a basic sketching of sceneries and path-breakingly “re-photographes (fu zhao)” that ordinary and eternal theme.

Wang Jun, Untitled No.5, Acrylic on canvas

40×50cm, 2020Wang Jun, Watercolor in the Forest, Watercolor on paper26×18cm, 2018-2020

Re-photographing (fu zhao) comes from the famous Chinese poem The Deer Enclosure (Lu Zhai) by Wang Wei. It refers to the process of continuous movement of light, and by extension, an awakening, reflecting actions that are accidental, frustrated, deliberate, and out of control. The light here, except the natural light, also means various painting experiences and cognitions. The studio is a dense forest, so is the exhibition space. The work, roughly resembling the "humble" "lichen", flickers and disappears in the exhibition hall, waiting for the "light of viewing". They together bring a special perception similar to Wang Wei’s verse: “Where sunlight, entering a grove, Shines back to me from the green moss.”—In the forest, the encounter of light and grass is a moment of shining; it is the action of coming, wiping, or it may be throwing or stimulating.

Wang Jun, Sketch map No.1, Watercolor on paper

2020-2021

Wang Jun, Sketch map No.2, Watercolor on paper

2020-2021

Wang Jun, Sketch map No.3, Watercolor on paper

2020-2021

Wang Jun prefers to work in a continuous self-doubt and wandering way. He rejects to translate the image directly and simply. Instead, he tries to get closer to a perceptual reality through constant denial, coverage, and reconstruction, making the "method" of creation become the "content" , or the “l(fā)andscape”in this case.

Landscape mirrors the mind. Some of the new works respond to the portrait painting (self-portrait). Returning from the forest to the studio, surprised or curious eye-like circles grow on canvas, whether the images are metamorphic representations of trees, or remaining traces after painting layer by layer. They will greet the audience while staring at other “eyes” in the gallery room, which are a batch of materialized "landscapes" woven into the net of "compound-eye" viewing.

About the artist

Wang Jun was born in Chongqing in 1974 and graduated from Sichuan Fine Arts Institute with Degree of Master. He currently lives and works in Chongqing, Guiyang. Wang Jun has always regarded "painting" as a vocabulary, making his creation unfolded in a way of continuous self-doubt and initiative to create deliberate and out of control. His recent works related to "landscape" — the“sketching”and the production of its images. He rejects to translate the image directly and simply. Instead, he tries to get closer to a perceptual reality through constant denial, coverage, and reconstruction to fight against inertial experience, making the "method" he practiced become "content".

About the exhibition

Duration: March 13, 2021 - April 20, 2021

Opening: March 13, 15:00-18:00, Saturday

Organizer: A Thousand Plateaus Art Space

Venue: A Thousand Plateaus Art Space

Address: South Square, Tiexiang Temple Riverfront, Shengbang Street, High-tech Development Zone, Chengdu, China

Tel: + 86 - (0) 28 8512 6358

E-mail: info@1000plateaus.org

Courtesy of the artist and A Thousand Plateaus Art Space.