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Memories Series

Works by Zhu Yi Yong

Vernissage: 9 November 2006,   6:30pm - 8:00pm
Exhibition Continues: 10 November 2006 - 6 December 2006

Main Gallery, 21-31 Old Bailey Street, Central, Hong Kong

Schoeni Art Gallery is delighted to announce that Zhu Yi Yong's highly anticipated exhibition entitled Memories will be taking place on two different occasions and locations; in Beijing from 6 – 10 October 2006 and Hong Kong from 9 November – 6 December 2006. This will be the 3rd solo exhibition of the prominent professor of the Sichuan Academy of Fine Arts held at Schoeni Art Gallery Ltd. Hong Kong, and it is with great pleasure that we share with you almost 20 of his newest works contained in the Memories series. For almost a decade, we have been privileged in the closeness with which we have followed Zhu Yi Yong's climb to success, and we are pleased to announce that this series will be debuting at the highly esteemed Art Beijing on the 6th of October 2006, where one out of our two booths will be solely devoted to the exhibition of these works.

Painting in the style of Realism, Zhu Yi Yong's new series renders his subjects in monochrome, and this duality of technique and palette creates an entendre effect of a combination of both nostalgia, in the vein of black and white photographs or film, and the artistic representation of contemporary reality. The motif of the children's game Cat's Cradle is whimsically composed at the forefront of all the canvases in Memories to great effect, not least for its recollection of China's most famous symbol in its history of Revolution, the red star. Pitched starkly into relief by its monochromatic backdrop, the gaps in the vibrant scarlet string, as it is plied apart by bewitchingly posed fingers, are in fact a day-glo portal from which the subject looming in the backdrop peers defiantly out of. Zhu Yi Yong thus artistically detonates this multi-faceted symbol with connotations of a tremulous political past whilst it simultaneously suggests notions of anti-materialism and a vision of renewal in the current climate of change and progress, as it is seen by China's ever growing population.

Part of the generation that grew up amidst the Red Army and its renowned "Red Five Stars", these symbols are inextricably linked to Zhu Yi Yong's memories of his childhood and maturation into adulthood, hence the name of the series. Widely recognized as the driving force behind Mao's propagation of his passion and ideology, the "Red Five Stars" are a central image of China's collective past, and as the artist shows, its present and future. In Zhu Yi Yong's series, the subjects in what are ostensibly portraits portray a cross-section of China's current demography, showcasing people who represent China as we know it today, in all walks of life, from schoolyard children to the Red Guard, ranging as far between as to capture the faces of China's cosmopolitan beauties and the proletarian agrarian worker and labourer.

Zhu Yi Yong questions what this symbol now means to his contemporaries. There are subtle nuances in the greys of this artist's use of monochrome, so as to artistically explore the metaphorical "grey-areas" that he discovers in his subjects. In addition to this, each piece differs from the next in stance, and also perspective, as Zhu Yi Yong selectively portrays his subject with unique facial expressions and comportment typical to the personality he is introducing to his audience. As a series, there is a dramatic and inclusive discussion of the myriad ways that this symbol now translates into the present, and indeed implying what this indicates for the future.

Memories is a show not to be missed, if only to meet China's latest stars.

Written by Alexandra Hamlyn

A catalogue was published in conjunction with the exhibition. Please click here for more details.