EXHIBITION REVIEW
"SUN AND MOON"
A Dialogue between East and West
By Yiting Lee
Sun and Moon: A Dialogue between East and West, the inaugural exhibition by Huang Contemporary, London, showcases works by eighteen emerging contemporary artists – nine from China and nine from other regions. This selection of artists purportedly facilitates “dialogue between young artists from the East and the West”, aptly addressing the mission of the gallery to bridge the contemporary art scene between China and a more international audience. The exhibition curated by Luna Huang was on view from 15th September to 27th September 2023 at The Goose Corporation Art Gallery, Wuhan.
Although the conceptions of “East” and “West” are loosely applied – for instance, the Vietnamese artist Van Tran currently based in Ireland straddles an ambiguous geographic and cultural position, the criterion of Chinese and non-Chinese artists is perhaps most suited for the purposes and scope of the exhibition of two-dimensional works in its location. The main merit of this concept lies in the opportunity it offers young artists to showcase their works to a new audience and be platformed as rigorous and dialogical on an international level. Without thematic sections and formal categorisation, the bold works on display, which were selected through an open call, present a view of the contemporary art landscape that is inherently multicultural: there is no fixed style or recognisable motifs that belong solely to the “East” or “West” in an increasingly global world with shared visual exposure.
Repatriation, by Van Tran. Lacquer paint on wood, 50 x 70 cm
Beyond a common visual consumption through mass media, the physical mobility of artists like Van Tran points to a fluid visual language in contemporary art. Van Tran’s Repatriation (2023) uses lacquer paint, a material which originated in East Asia but was exported to Europe via Middle East and Central Asia, and was particularly popular in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Lacquer painting was revived and developed into a form of fine art genre known as sÆ¡n mài in Vietnam in the 1930s. Using a material embedded with global histories of trade and culture, Tran depicts a lone dog in side profile against a texturous red background, sat as if it were waiting obediently or insistently for something undefined. It is balanced compositionally by a mark reminiscent of a name seal, common is Asia, and the artist’s signature in the same shade of gold. The use of negative space corresponds to the evocative title – ‘repatriation’, hinting at the complexities of the flow of culture and items that result from globalisation.
Rough Tongue, Green Lip, by Claire Shakespeare. Oil and enamel on wood, 22 x 18 cm
N, by Claire Shakespeare. Oil, gloss paint and wool on canvas, 30.5 x 37.6 cm
Similarly defined in Sun and Moon as a work from the “West” and placed across from Van Tran’s work, UK-based artist Claire Shakespeare’s oil-painted works, Rough Tongue, Green Lip and N (both 2023), have a different materiality and effect. Also texturous and clearly built with layers of colour, the paintings retain the artist’s mark-making on its the surface: brushmarks made on semi-dry paint, repetitive scratches in N, reworking of paint layers to partly obscure and leave visible underpainting. Like Tran, Shakespeare uses unconventional materials to create interesting surface textures. Enamel is used in Rough Tongue, Green Lip, and its title contributes to the oral connotations with tooth enamel, though distinct from the enamel used on wood in the piece. With these associations, the sickly colours then generate a slight feeling of discomfort. There is a bodily element to both works on display. In N, the rich red wool threads on the flesh-coloured canvas evoke suturing on skin, a painful process that elicits unease.
The Person and Three Cats Passing Through Meteorites
Shijie Zhang. Mixed media on canvas, 218 x 190 cm
Stitches also feature in the work The Person and Three Cats Passing Through Meteorites (2023) by Chinese artist Shijie Zhang. The Basquiat-esque canvas exudes a sense of chaos, with seemingly hurried brushstrokes and strong movement across the canvas: repetitive arrows are literally drawn to denote the directional movement and speed of the running figures. Aiming to create a more “universal experience”, the signs and symbols in Zhang’s works is easily understood and the graphic style draws on animated cartoons that are perhaps within the repertoire of visual language in both “East” and “West”.