Wang Zhibo is a talented young female Chinese artist who specialises in the rendition of oil paintings depicting natural and man-made interior and exterior spaces. A recent graduate from the China Academy of Art Oil Painting Department, Zhibo was awarded the prestigious national Luo Zhongli Scholarship in 2008 for her sensitive and evocative Garden paintings. Zhibo’s work has since received nation-wide attention and has been exhibited at various institutions across China, including the Chong Qing Art Museum, the Today Art Museum in Beijing and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Taipei.
Read MoreZhibo’s oil paintings draw viewers into distinctly enigmatic and isolated spaces. Seemingly realistic yet illusory, Zhibo depicts settings that combine natural elements such as running water, a towering tree or a rock, with man-made constructions such as a cemented path, a balustrade or a fountain. It is this very combination of subject matters that gives Zhibo’s paintings their eery and engaging force, for while the viewer senses the presence and tracks of man, he is pointedly nowhere to be found. The viewer is thus confounded as to the status of the space: in ‘Spectacle’ (2012), for example, one questions whether Zhibo has captured a rare second when citizens are not hustling around the running marble fountain or has depicted the setting at the break of dusk or dawn when people have not yet awoken.
The ambiguity as to time and the isolation in Zhibo’s paintings is accentuated by her subtle manipulation of light. Although devoid of human presence, Zhibo casts shades and ripples of paint onto the natural elements, which brings them very much alive and at the centre of our attention: the angular rocks in ’Green Fault’ (2012) seem to glow and reflect whereas the cascading water in ‘We just love the Beauty ’ (2012) resembles a flowing sheet, animated by various tonalities. Zhibo’s oil paintings thus do not merely depict what is real but also what is sensed: although depicting identifiable objects, Zhibo’s painting style seeks to simultaneously convey an impression, adding a layer of topical sensitivity to her delicately executed scenic renditions.
Increasingly recognised for her intention to question human ideals, Wang Zhibo is a ‘post-80s’ artist to examine as she emerges in the Chinese as well as international art scene.
