WHAT WE KNOW

Shen is the first Chinese artist in the gallery roster. Born in 1955, the New-York based artist’s solo show features twelve paintings created between 2009 and 2021.

Painting with the canvas on the floor, the artist adopts a physical and introspective gesture of layering brushstrokes onto the canvas. Incorporating the flow of his qi (breath movement and energy), Shen paints each brushstroke vertically and by doing so, forms a horizontal marking of where the brushes end and begin again. What emerges from the canvas is a transformative, ever-changing, and endless space. With subtle tonal gradation and nuances, Shen’s works bear stylistic influences of paintings from the Color Field movement of New York in the 1940s and 50s.

WHY WE LOVE IT

Besides the fact that Shen is the first Chinese artist to be represented by the gallery? The works in the exhibition are minimalistic, introspective, and meditative. Although the artist recapitulates the brushwork associated with traditional Chinese ink brush painting, his practice is fully contemporary. Through the very intimate process of ‘stroke-laying’, his works become poetic, drawing his audience in. It’s hard not to be mesmerised by the subtle nuances in colour and tonality.