Jiang Lu and Chen Pu: Journey

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Jiang Lu and Chen Pu: Journey

Organized by the Samek Art Gallery

Curated by Dan Mills

October 23 – December 8, 2009

This exhibition focuses on works on paper by two Tianjin-based contemporary artists, Chen Pu and Jiang Lu. Both Jiang and Chen make work that embodies ideas of journey. Chen makes silkscreen prints and Jiang creates ink and wash paintings.

Jiang's On the Journey series combines images of suitcases and the motion-filled and gestural marks, washes, and splatters of ink and brush painting. In some images, the travel bag is the primary subject, rendered in a painterly and representational manner. In others, the bag is a small visual component painted above, behind, suspended from and seemingly moving through fields of brushstrokes, daubs, and linework. In often-playful images that range from abstract to evoking landscapes and skies, this series and the ubiquitous travel bag embodies the journey.

The journeys of Chen's work are travels through time. Her prints are an amalgamation of images. In this series of silkscreens, Chen combines photographic images from the Maoist era and the cultural revolution, combines these with images of consumer era furniture and personal accessories, then places these iconic pop images onto painterly grounds. The objects, often hand-held mirrors, reflect images of China that for many are quickly receding from memory.

Jiang Lu was born in Tianjin in 1951. He lives in Tianjin, where he is president of the Tianjin Academy of Fine Arts. Chen Pu was born in 1953, lives in Tianjin, where she teaches in the Art and design school of Tianjin Normal University.