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FairylandPresented by 798 Avant Gallery October 20, 2007- November 17, 2007Reception: October 25, 6:00 pm - 8:00 pmLü Peng798 Avant Gallery is pleased to present Fairyland, a solo exhibition by the contemporary Chinese artist Lü Peng. This will be the artist’s first solo exhibition at 798 Avant Gallery. Fairyland will showcase new paintings and ink works on papers that continue to explore and expand the visual territory of colliding cultures. A child of the Cultural Revolution and a native Beijinger, Lü Peng was born in 1967. He graduated from Beijing’s Capital Normal University in 1991 with a degree in fine art painting. In the mid nineties he gained international recognition as a founding member of the Three Travel Weary Loafers Group with Wei Dong and Liang Chang Sheng. In 2003 Lü Peng began working towards a doctorate in Chinese Painting at the Central Academy of Fine Arts. Lü Peng’s new work in Fairyland continues to mine and intermingle the cultural symbols and iconography of traditional China and the modern world. These works typify the artist’s refined technical style and make evident his elevated level of intellectual scholarship. The waterfalls, trees, and mountains of traditional Chinese landscapes give way to checkerboard patterns and fleshy nudes. Characters from the Beijing Opera swirl into harmony with arrow wielding women wearing little more than ribbons. A man of the orient uses a set of modern binoculars to look over the shoulder of a naked woman holding only an ink brush. While these visual juxtapositions may stimulate a sense of temporary confusion, they are composed with such exquisite balance and grace that the chaos seems orderly in its place. Charles M. Schultz Quotes: “Lü Peng observes and records the era and its accompanying culturo-psychological schemata as an outsider with the attitude of a free and unfettered wanderer.” Zhang Zhaohui, “Free and Unfettered: On Lü Peng’s Works” “Lü Peng’s art depicts jumbled scenes where people from different times and space meet—a testimony to a contemporary legend that is rich in both meanings and images” Y. F. Chen. “Through the Wall, and the Implicated Myth” “Lü Peng has been deeply affected by traditional drama, martial arts fiction, electronic games, and Hollywood films. Thus, these elements have become the main thread of his works. His works enable us to process the confused state of today’s culture and comprehend it in terms of adventure stories – paintings with absurd humor, and a sense of violence.” Li Xianting. “A Game of Piling up Cultural Fragments” “Lü Peng’s works are a collection of personal experiences, memories and fantasies, a metaphor for the estrangement and intimacy of contemporary China.” “The Generation at the Fringe”
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