Slide

The Giant in the Attic

Exhibition

The Giant in the Attic

Artist: CHEN Zifeng

2021.01.17 - 2021.02.27

Chen Zifeng’s works have a temperament that makes people feel nervous. It is as if we were glancing at a giant hiding in the attic, facing away from us, doing things we could not know or understand. We will have a hint of curiosity and fear, but then turn around and leave.

The attic is such an existence. It is dark, crowded, always ignored and forgotten, and people see it as if it is not related to their own world. Thus, the thin partition on the top floor of the house becomes a big box for storing secret traces.

Chen Zifeng, who has acquired traditional Chinese painting theory and technical training, lives in a house and its attic at the same time. When the giants living in the attic were constantly condensed in the images created by the artist, the accumulated weight of multiple emotions and desires made the attic squeaky, and the suppressed dialogue agitated. Man is neither born free nor has absolute freedom. On the artistic level, what Chen Zifeng wants to fight against and break through is not only the constraints of Chinese painting techniques and forms, but also the unresolved contradictions of traditional art in the contemporary era. Due to the rapid transformation and development of economic models in China, there is abyss between traditional Chinese culture  and contemporary society. Traditional art is stuck in fundamentalism and is out of step with contemporary civilisation. Its core has long been compressed by the so-called “advanced civilisation” into a mocked schema. When history is unable to help advance, contemporary people selectively forget the “remains”, as if we no longer have traceable roots. Faced with these houses built on an unstable, easily collapsed, and hollow foundation, Chen Zifeng has been making silent protests, naively insisting on the creation of a culture in his own attic.

The giants’ images created by the artist do not exist to please, they are twisted and perverted organic structures born with suppressed desires. Behind the vague and plump body, the sluggish eyes and the cyber colour is the uneasiness that swells in the dark. This uneasiness is not only in the picture, but it is just like a mirror, reflecting the contradictory minds of contemporary people living in the traditional concept and the current society.

Giants will not huddle in the attic eternally, and because of their hidden threat to the entire house, it will tempt us to enter the attic; when we are facing the giants, our bodies gradually unfolded.

Exhibitions

过往展览

2023/07/22-10/09

Please,Do Mind The Gap

June Fischer, Xie Yu, Arch Gallery, 1L, 1123 Cultural and Creative Park, Tianxin District, Changsha City.
2022.10.22-2023.01.07

The Task of Alchemy

Artist:Zhao Yu
2022.10.22-2023.01.07

Amber

Artist:Duan Yifan
2022.10.22-2023.01.07

炼金的任务

艺术家:赵玉
2022.10.22-2023.01.07

琥珀

艺术家:段一凡
2022.10.22-2023.01.07

A N G E L U S

艺术家:汉娜·贝纳西

Art Channel

艺术频道

ARCH INTERVIEW | Guo Yujian

Since then, I have tried to let daydream-like imagination seep into the picture, and those earlier, more symbolic images have also been naturally diluted. Perhaps, it is precisely because of the temperament that seems to be infiltrated by the picture and some image contents that are contrary to reality that cause the association like a dream.

ARCH REVIEW | Gaze in the Dim Glow

“The Task of Alchemy”, Pocono Zhao Yu’s solo exhibition at Arch Gallery, presents a subtle sense of time traveling. As the title of the exhibition alludes to, it is as if the smelting and mysterious deeds of some spiritual objects. Within the whisper that fluttering outside of time, this enormous task is under the invisible dome of time.

ARCH REVIEW | Making Complicity

When the painting is really close to us, the first thing that appears to our eyes is this Le cimetière marin[1] written by Valéry in 1922. The curators Hu Yihang and Zhang Tingzhi, together with artist Guo Yujian, divided the exhibition “Dangerous Complicity” in the gallery into three chapters with words and symbols: imagination, a plateau, and a theatre.

ARCH 采访 | 郭宇剑

从那时起我尝试让白日梦式的想象力渗到画面中去,那些较早之前象征意味较浓的图示也被自然地冲淡了。或许正是因为这种像是被什么浸润过的画面所流淌出的气质和一些与现实相违和的图像内容才造成了类似梦境似的联想。

ARCH 采访 | 郑江

“边界惊险但精彩,像绘制一个形象生动的轮廓线时一样充满诱惑力。我觉得创作过程本身就包含对艺术形式的思考,两者应该是一体、贴切的。”

ARCH REVIEW | 郭宇剑:危险同谋

在看向郭宇剑的作品时,被描绘的总是在流动的状态中,相互间有着联系的密语成为图像回避我们、又逼近我们扑面而来。我们视线内成形在画布上的作品是尚未到来、在过渡中、即将迎接变化,直到感受盈满,它才会把我们推远。

Tuesday – Sunday
10.00am – 6.00pm

ARCH Gallery
Yinjiachong Rd, Tianxin District
410000 Changsha

星期二 – 星期日
上午10.00 – 下午6.00

湖南省长沙市天心区殷家冲路
1123文创园一楼
ARCH GALLERY

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