Silent Voices : Ink Paintings by Xu Lei

, in 2010, Exhibitions, On View, Projects (0 Comments)

12 January － 12 February 2010
New York

Mee-Seen Loong Fine Art, New York, and RedBox Studio, Beijing are pleased to present the first solo gallery exhibition in the United States by Chinese contemporary artist Xu Lei. Exhibited at Joan B Mirviss, New York, Silent Voices will present 12 new large scale paintings rendered entirely in ink.

Xu Lei (b. 1963) combines traditional Chinese ink and brush techniques with the spirit of Western surrealism, resulting in mysterious works displaying a lush color palette. Rich with wit, irony and a subtle coded eroticism, his paintings gradually reveal veiled themes through artfully encoded imagery. Stories without endings, Xu Lei’s paintings are the work of a unique artist steeped in China’s cultural past and engaged in its dynamic present.

His works have been featured in international exhibitions including the watershed China/Avant-Garde exhibition at the National Art Museum of China in 1998, and 5000 Years of Chinese Art and Civilization, which toured to the Guggenheim Museum New York in 1998, and Bilbao in 2000. In 2008 he had a solo exhibition at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. His paintings will be included in a major exhibition upcoming of contemporary Chinese art at the Metropolitan Museum in New York. His work is included in the permanent collections of major museums in China and abroad.

Xu Lei was born in Nantong, Jiangsu Province, China, and graduated from the Fine Arts Department of the Nanjing Arts Institute. He is currently a scholar at the China Art Research Institute and Art Director of Classics published by the Today Art Museum in Beijing.

A full color catalogue is available with an introduction by Jeffrey Hantover.

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