Gallery on Old Bailey
17 Old Bailey street, Central, Hong Kong | +852 2869 7122
Reflecting Reflections
- Date
- 27 June 2007 – 20 July 2007
- Artists
- CHAI Yiming
- Venue
- Gallery on Old Bailey 奧卑利畫廊
- Synopsis
- To Chinese artist CHAI Yiming, there is no such a concept as originality. All kinds of so-called creativity can at most be seen as a re-arrangement of what we have experienced.
Taking an anti-intellectual approach, he disregards the deeper meanings behind images. Regarding himself as lazy, he negates need for deciphering the text in books.
“Art house films are not my cup of tea. They require too much thinking. In order to fully understand a Fellini’s film, I have to watch it several times. It is just too long,” he says.
Rather, Chai takes pleasure in the material world. Like an inquisitive child, he embraces and collects heaps of images from mass media, contemporary art, comics or even adults’ magazines without screening and classification.
As a result, Chai’s paintings consist of an eclectic, unusual mixture of fragments: body parts, flowers, masks, balloons, scenery, sofa, puppets, butterflies and shoes. The bits and pieces are unsorted, redundant, unexpected. There would also be a strange combination of graffiti, pornography poses, and nightmarish scenes in various forms. His caricatures could have cows’ head and horses’ faces.
Without delving into social meanings of images, Chai forgoes the standards in determining what is essential or rubbish. The historical concept is being stripped. It is a satirical statement of how modern people have been bombarded and hypnotized by images. Meanings are lost, twisted or confusing.
During the first encounter, CHAI might look like a solitary, lazy painter. But through closer examination of his paintings, his inner world is one filled with absurdities, commotion and craziness.
To Chinese artist CHAI Yiming, there is no such a concept as originality. All kinds of so-called creativity can at most be seen as a re-arrangement of what we have experienced.
Taking an anti-intellectual approach, he disregards the deeper meanings behind images. Regarding himself as lazy, he negates need for deciphering the text in books.
“Art house films are not my cup of tea. They require too much thinking. In order to fully understand a Fellini’s film, I have to watch it several times. It is just too long,” he says.
Rather, Chai takes pleasure in the material world. Like an inquisitive child, he embraces and collects heaps of images from mass media, contemporary art, comics or even adults’ magazines without screening and classification.
As a result, Chai’s paintings consist of an eclectic, unusual mixture of fragments: body parts, flowers, masks, balloons, scenery, sofa, puppets, butterflies and shoes. The bits and pieces are unsorted, redundant, unexpected. There would also be a strange combination of graffiti, pornography poses, and nightmarish scenes in various forms. His caricatures could have cows’ head and horses’ faces.
Without delving into social meanings of images, Chai forgoes the standards in determining what is essential or rubbish. The historical concept is being stripped. It is a satirical statement of how modern people have been bombarded and hypnotized by images. Meanings are lost, twisted or confusing.
During the first encounter, CHAI might look like a solitary, lazy painter. But through closer examination of his paintings, his inner world is one filled with absurdities, commotion and craziness.