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From viewing Peng Jian’s new works, one can see that the subject matter of these paintings are no longer the traditional icons of the past – mountains and lakes, flowers and birds – but instead, the painting’s surface is adorned with everyday objects, like glass bottles, mixed with pieces and fragments of mechanical parts.
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“The objects I portray in my paintings are things I have seen and touched in my life. They must have a sense of existence to me.”
– Peng Jian
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The objects depicted in these works are still life, however, different from the still life paintings we have seen in the past. Whether viewing these works through Western or Eastern painting aesthetics, the images presented here give viewers a sense of misalignment between reality and illusion.
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“With works like this one, Peng Jian demonstrates a strong relationship to a number of western contemporary artists, despite divergent motivations.”
- Barbara Pollack
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These new works offer us a new perspective to reconsider our understanding of Chinese painting. As Peng Jian explains, “The objects I portray in my paintings are things I have seen and touched in my life. They must have a sense of existence to me. The bottle in the painting, although it is not a classic form, it embodies the pureness and simplicity of contemporary art, while incorporating the refined atmosphere of traditional Chinese Song painting”.
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This exhibition thoroughly showcases Peng Jian’s talent in reconciling these two elements, thus rendering his works as classical and modern, as well as Western and Chinese. He invites viewers to review the world through his art, applying one’s own perspective to understand the past and at the same time, to redefine the future.
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Peng Jian was born in Yueyang, Hunan Province in 1982. He graduated with an MFA from China Academy of Art at Hangzhou in 2013, where he still works and lives.
In 2019, Peng Jian’s new painting Harmony depicts those colorful "puzzles", "building blocks" and "Rubik's cubes” are described as metaphors, which triggered a reverse thinking in a reality that is too deliberately complicated. Peng Jian combins the Minimist aesthetic elements with traditional Chinese painting skill together which brings a physical relationship upto a philosophical level.
Atelier – Peng Jian
Past viewing_room