ARTISTS
Yan Pei-Ming: Against The Light
Yan Pei-Ming鈥檚 new series of works explore the complexities of current global developments and their multilayered impact, on a societal as well as a personal and emotional level. While in recent years Yan Pei-Ming鈥檚 practice has been characterised by his engagement with the works and legacies of other painters, including Gustave Courbet, this exhibition marks the artist鈥檚 return to the self. Created during the last few months, the self-portraits and still-lifes of this exhibition are pervaded by feelings of constriction and solitude experienced during the artist's confinement. In these diverse paintings, Yan Pei-Ming examines the unprecedented inner conflicts of the present moment in an intimate and piercingly direct way.
Deeply rooted in the tradition of European painting, Yan Pei-Ming鈥檚 works are interrelated by their shared preoccupation with the passing of time. The key themes of his paintings have long concerned history or the history of art and classical pictorial themes remain prevalent in this new series. Yan Pei-Ming鈥檚 still-lifes depicting skulls are reminiscent of vanitas paintings of the seventeenth century, but also of modernist artists like Paul Cezanne. The works evoke established iconographic connotations such as the transience and fragility of life, while also embodying a universal and very contemporary quality 鈥� a duality characteristic of the artist. Painted in a period of physical isolation, during which each day resembled the next, the passage of time gained a new dimension for the artist, prompting him to re-examine this classic theme for the first time in three decades. His subjects tread a line between traditional forms of representation and contemporary cultural relevance, inviting interpretation from a classical perspective as well as from the present moment.
Yan Pei-Ming鈥檚 self-portraits document a certain turning point in the artist鈥檚 work. He has recently returned to this genre of painting, which was significant during the first stages of his artistic development, after avoiding it for over 30 years.
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Yan Pei-Ming鈥檚 new series of works explore the complexities of current global developments and their multilayered impact, on a societal as well as a personal and emotional level. While in recent years Yan Pei-Ming鈥檚 practice has been characterised by his engagement with the works and legacies of other painters, including Gustave Courbet, this exhibition marks the artist鈥檚 return to the self. Created during the last few months, the self-portraits and still-lifes of this exhibition are pervaded by feelings of constriction and solitude experienced during the artist's confinement. In these diverse paintings, Yan Pei-Ming examines the unprecedented inner conflicts of the present moment in an intimate and piercingly direct way.
Deeply rooted in the tradition of European painting, Yan Pei-Ming鈥檚 works are interrelated by their shared preoccupation with the passing of time. The key themes of his paintings have long concerned history or the history of art and classical pictorial themes remain prevalent in this new series. Yan Pei-Ming鈥檚 still-lifes depicting skulls are reminiscent of vanitas paintings of the seventeenth century, but also of modernist artists like Paul Cezanne. The works evoke established iconographic connotations such as the transience and fragility of life, while also embodying a universal and very contemporary quality 鈥� a duality characteristic of the artist. Painted in a period of physical isolation, during which each day resembled the next, the passage of time gained a new dimension for the artist, prompting him to re-examine this classic theme for the first time in three decades. His subjects tread a line between traditional forms of representation and contemporary cultural relevance, inviting interpretation from a classical perspective as well as from the present moment.
Yan Pei-Ming鈥檚 self-portraits document a certain turning point in the artist鈥檚 work. He has recently returned to this genre of painting, which was significant during the first stages of his artistic development, after avoiding it for over 30 years.
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Yan Pei-Ming鈥檚 new series of works explore the complexities of current global developments and their multilayered impact, on a societal as well as a personal and emotional level.
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