23/4/2004
Liu Wei
GalerieUrsMeile, Luzern
The Floating Spirit of Flowers. Liu Wei's subjects, sometimes painstakingly detailed to look like miniatures, while others are roughly sketched or vigorously painted, are the result of a very complex cultural, pictorial and temporal stratification. Initially he was inspired by Chinese calligraphy, landscape and ink painting, as well as by European New Expressionist painting, Chinese (and Japanese) erotic iconography and even Egyptian archeology. But as time passed Liu Wei's painting underwent a gradual process of fusion and reinterpretation of the reference models.
"The Floating Spirit of Flowers"
The leporello-album has a long history in the Eastern world. This object, always exquisitely crafted and greatly appreciated by the members of the intelligentsia, used to contain valuable artworks such as calligraphies, poems, essays, songs, prints, ink-and-wash paintings, sketches and so forth. It is not by chance then that Chinese artist Liu Wei (*Beijing, 1965) chose this support to create his latest series of paintings called Flowers (2003-2004). Consisting of a set of ten variously sized leporello-albums, Liu Wei's works, when unfolded, reveal a throng of figures emerging from a natural landscape which spreads out to almost completely cover the paper surface. Liu Wei's paintings are characterized by an unconventional mixture of styles and media which, although producing an effect of fragmentation where each single section of the work stands out conspicuously, nevertheless adds an extraordinary liveliness and dynamism to the whole composition. The artist explains: "Confusion makes totality. I think that to use different media and styles is a way to pick up the gauntlet. Oil painting, water colour, ink, Chinese mountains-and-waters painting, calligraphy... If you want to mix them together it is very difficult, but to me it is very obvious that they are one and the same thing - painting. They make a single entity. My target is to give expression to free thinking. (...) My paintings are like a flight, like music... music cannot always have the same melody: sometimes... it runs away for a while, and then it comes back again..."*
Liu Wei's subjects, sometimes painstakingly detailed to look like miniatures, while others are roughly sketched or vigorously painted, are the result of a very complex cultural, pictorial and temporal stratification. Initially he was inspired by Chinese calligraphy, landscape and ink painting, as well as by European New Expressionist painting, Chinese (and Japanese) erotic iconography and even Egyptian archeology. But as time passed Liu Wei's painting underwent a gradual process of fusion and reinterpretation of the reference models.
Liu Wei's works - shown at the Urs Meile gallery - took one year to complete and during this period, each of the leporello-albums was subject to continual alterations and adjustments according to the artist's sensibility. "My works are connected with my spirit... there is no fixed program in my creations: if today I feel I want to change something in my painting, I just do it; there is no set plan: it's like floating here or there... you cannot stop your stream of sensations, can you?"
Extract of "The Floating Spirit of Flowers" by Nataline Colonnello
* Extract of an interview with Liu Wei recorded in Beijing, February 24, 2004.
Opening 24 April 2004 3-6pm
Image:
Detail aus Leporello-Buch (ca. 25 x 350 cm) 2004,
Tusche und Oel auf Papier
GalerieUrsMeile
Rosenberghöhe 4a CH - 6004 Luzern
Fon: (+41) 041 420 33 18
Fax: (+41) 041 420 21 69