Integration - Chinese and French Abstract Art Exhibition

Lu Lin

Lu Lin was born in the famous cultural city Jinan , Shan Dong Province of China

As early as in 1980's, Lu Lin had won a reputation for his unique abstract ink works, and always been positioned as one of the representatives of abstract ink art. In 1986, his first solo exhibition was held in Beijing, named Lu Lin Abstract Art Foretype Show, and Lulin Abstract Ink Painting Exhibition was held in 1987, Beijing. In 1989, the reknowned contemporary chinese art critic Li Xianting recommended Lu lin to the great Modern Chinese Ink Painting Exhibition held in Japan .

During the hard period of Beijing Yuan Ming Yuan Artists Village , Lu Lin's hilarious character , artistic skills and type brightened up and influenced many other avant-garde artists, such as Yue Mingjun and Yang Shaobin. In chinese contemporary art circle, his works were the most early appreciated and collected by many collectors and galleries worldwide

Using different kinds of material including canvases, Chinese xuan paper, water ink and brush, Lu Lin is continuously searching for a way to establish a Chinese version of the contemporary art: deviating from the traditional Chinese painting style and method, but relating with the east philosophy and culture.

Yi Ling

The magic and mystery of Yiling's artwork

A veteran, or should that say 'survivor', of the Yuanmingyuan art collective post 1995 demise, the artist Yiling's resume is impressive, his works having been exhibited widely across China , including his native Shanghai , and internationally ~ from Singapore to Germany , Belgium , Holland , France , and Luxembourg. Previously, between the years of 1983 and 1987, the artist toured China on bicycle, travelling from the northern to the southern provinces. During this time, he appreciated first-hand the many forms of Chinese folk-art, taking a particular interest in the various patterns and decorations of China 's many different cultural minorities ~ these at times mysterious encounters becoming a foundation for his artistic development.

To quote the artist himself: "My artistic experience developed from my cultural ~ the more I experienced, the greater my wish was to paint. I find that painting is a means to communicate, one kind of expression" yet the more that I paint, the more I don't want to paint, because it is very strenuous work, even though it is filled with love and freedom. For me, the most magical power of art is to invoke mystery, and to let the distress of reality be forgotten. Art is as immortal life". It is this desire for freedom ~ both in life and in art, if the two can be made separate ~ that is the key to Yiling's work: for within his canvases the use of abstract symbols, human and animal figures, both religious and pop-culture iconography, primitive cartoon-like forms at times boldly outlined, at times cryptic and seemingly hidden, evoke a playful amusement from the viewer. There is a definite sense of life and movement amidst the kinetic lines, a constant flow of energy, an active experiment with the interconnection of images. The labyrinth can appear even dreamlike / hallucinatory, as we decode an image only to find a moment later that it was a figment of our imagination, then suddenly find amongst the network and pathways of interweaving lines a form that is real, and we smile with a child-like amusement at our discovery. Indeed, it is as if an innocence, both primitive and of youth, is present ~ a refreshment to the eye and mind so occupied by the sturm und drang of modern life.

Francesca Brenda-Mitterrand

Born to a family of artists, Francesca Brenda has been passionate aboute painting since childhood, a passion inspired by her father, a nature of Curacao . Her mother was French and she was raised by her Colombian grand-mother.

Living in Colombia , she was exposed to the violent extremes of that society from adolescence. She participated in political movements proposing the abolution of these extreme class distinctions. Forced eventually to leave the country, she sought refuge in Costa-Rica, having traveled extensively throughout Central America, Europe, Lebanon , Morroco , Egypt and Hong Kong.She fills her canvases with shimmering, contrasting colors.

A clash of cultures and people, latent violent conflicts, intense joy and pain. A glance, emphasized by the intensity of a stroke or the shock of a color. Simultaneously express, hope, hate, love, joy, machismo, aggrssion. Sometimes the subjects appeare to come and go from the canvas in the blink of an eyes.

Today, living in Paris , Francesca Brenda offers us a painting of instant sensation. The intense gazes, revealed in a vivid feature, a sharp edge. These images challenge us, they watch us. They are mishievous, laughing, jealous, enamoured, ambiguous. Destructured through the expanse of this gesture that we arrive at abstraction.

Marc Baufrère

Standing in front of "Landscapes of the Unspoken", by Marc Baufrère, a sort of physical coercion compels you into the heart of the painting. Suddenly light-headed, you can't escape the unceasing commotion of forms, the shadowy forces, like being suspended in empty space.

His technique gives the work the quality of alchemy, as if each painting were an enchanted vehicle, a vehicle transporting you to and from all the diverse moods of the soul. Each work has a noticeable permeability, allowing the spectator to venture into worlds of indeterminate sensations.

Like Antonin Artaud or Henri Michaud before him, Marc Baufrère conducts the inexpressible and fleeting impressions of mental states. His visions become clear with the rhythm of the paint on the canvas, an explosive symbiosis of cerebral flux and painterly execution. Playing with tonalities that are alternatively white-hot, soothing or icy-cold, the forms created produce a charge for the imagination. Once a painting is finished, Baufrère gives it a title that comes spontaneously from the sensations of that particular act of painting:

"I work with an urgency that I've never been able to get away from: the urgency of absolute silence where there is only room for mind; matter annihilating matter."

Artists

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