WEST BUND ART & DESIGN 2024

Subodh GUPTA (b. 1964, India), a renowned contemporary artist from India, has garnered international acclaim in the art world for his distinctive works that reinterpret everyday objects commonly found across India. He employs a skilful technique to transform commonplace objects of everyday Indian life, including tiffin boxes, thali pans, bicycles, and milk cans, into monumental forms, and is particularly renowned for his ability to transform stainless steel vessels into dramatic large-scale installations. GUPTA challenges conventional notions of artistic value, striving to uncover new forms of beauty in the process. His body of work reflects a deep engagement with socio-cultural realities in Asia, which he explores through various mediums including sculpture, installation, painting, video, and performance, offering profound reflections on themes such as rapid urbanization, globalization, and cultural hybridity. The Inner Garden series of paintings, which will be exhibited at the fair, visually express emotions derived from reflections on communication and relationships with nature. The still life at the center of the paintings, with its fluid, dynamic form, symbolically reveals the powerful and resilient forces of nature. Each utensil, with its own history, memory and traces of life, evokes recollections of the past in the viewer’s consciousness, and also functions as a symbolic element that evokes cultural memory and spiritual resonance.

Another participating artist is Japanese interdisciplinary artist Kohei NAWA (b. 1975, Japan), and will present two representative works from his Direction Series and Transfer Series. In the Direction series, the artist has conducted a series of studies on the paint, and drips them from the top edge of the canvas that is perpendicular to the ground but tilted at an angle. The relationship between points, lines and surfaces is in a state of constant evolution in motion. The speed and direction of movement, along with the invisible forces of gravity, are both agents in the creation of the work and the focus of its expression. The artist allows gravity to complete the painting, while simultaneously regulating the position of the canvas himself. The paintings, created through the utilisation of two markedly disparate methodologies, namely happening and manipulation, look like mechanical products. Nevertheless, the vestiges of the paintings remain discernible, serving as a reminder of the myriad of unobserved elements that are intrinsic to the work. Kohei NAWA’s interdisciplinary art practice thus investigates the intricate phenomena of science and the virtual digital domain through sensory and perceptual experiences.

As a representative artist born in the late 1970s, CHEN Yujun(b. 1976, Putian, Fujian) grew up during the historical stage when Chinese society underwent a multitude of radical transformations. Through meticulous reflection and exploration, the relationship between individual genes/characteristics of life and the natural and cultural environment has increasingly become the driving force of Chen’s creations, Themed from the Mulan River in his hometown to the Mother River that nurtures Asia and the whole world, his imagination and brushstrokes implicitly follow the footsteps of overseas Chinese who left their hometowns in the early days. Chen intends to ask for the way out of self-redemption and the direction of human nomadism towards a further future. ARARIO GALLERY will present three of the artist’s most recent works, inviting the viewer to engage with the artist’s exploration of ultimate personal redemption and belonging.

The Manila-based Filipino artist Buen CALUBAYAN (b. 1980) will present his latest work, entitled Structure without Shadows. CALUBAYAN investigates the mechanisms of world-making and the techniques of perception—of what happens in-between the self and the world in terms of mediation, image-making, and the production of devices that enable such operations. He employs Renaissance linear perspective as a point of departure to interpret nineteenth-century Philippine colonial painting, delineating the coordinates of a specific regional context within what was becoming the broader art world. His works involves the rethinking of the notions of the horizon, the vanishing point, and grounding as well as the mechanisms that make it visible such as framing, archiving historiography, and accessibility.

In addition, ARARIO GALLERY will also present representative works by artists from China and Korea: HUANG Yuanqing, who employs calligraphy as the foundation of his abstract paintings, will present his latest work, which synthesizes the intrinsic qualities of calligraphy with the logical structure of painting; Ada - Deep Red, as one of the Ada series, represents a distillation of MA Kelu’s four decades of meticulous inquiry into the theoretical underpinnings of abstract painting and the evolution of calligraphic practice; GWON Osang describes the Relief series as ‘depictions of the airflow’, and the works on showcase are the latest exploration of the theme of ‘creating small enclosed spaces within the sculpture themselves’; CHA Hyeonwook’s oeuvre represents a nuanced synthesis of traditional and modern elements. While he bases his work on the form and materials of Korean painting, his painting technique does not fully adhere to the traditional method of color painting. At the fair, he will present a series of works that exemplify this approach; NOH Sangho’s creative process reflects the artist’s contemplation on how images are consumed and created within the conditions of our time, and will present some of his THE GREAT CHAPBOOK series and the HOLY series at the booth; AHN Jisan’s latest work will consistently express the the reality and emotional experience of the subject through intuition and empathy; and in In YAN Heng’s familiar yet estranged world, the viewer will be invited to find the dialogues between life and mechanical forms, between instinct and intellect, between reality and fiction. Concurrently, LIANG Manqi has been invited to participate in the DREAM xiàn chǎng, during which her latest works will be presented at the GATE M Dream Center. This will provide viewers with a comprehensive experience of entering the phantasm, traversing the ground of symbols, and ultimately arriving at reality.

Through West Bund Art & Design 2024, ARARIO GALLERY aims to present the works of distinctive artists from East and Southeast Asia, offering audiences the multifaceted allure of contemporary art.