Galerie Urs Meile is delighted to announce our participation in the latest iteration of Art Basel's OnlineViewing Rooms (OVR) dedicated to works created in 2020. Our OVR will showcase a solo presentation of emerging Chinese artist Ju Ting (b. 1983 in Shandong, China) under the title Onion Skins.
Onion skins as a metaphor of Ju Ting's work is evocative. The artist piles layers of acrylic paints, then takes adventurous actions onto the rich archive of the picture planes, like peeling an onion, inviting observers to examine what is within. We will present three series of works from Ju Ting in the OVR, namely Untitled, Pearl and the most recent 'Dong Dong' series.
(The title Onion Skins was coined by Karen Smith in her essay of the same name in the exhibition catalogue Peeling an Onion. Ju Ting, Galerie Urs Meile, Beijing 2018.)
Ju Ting is one of China's foremost young female contemporary artists with a work characterised by coalescing two conventional art media: painting and sculpture, and obscuring the boundary between the two.Ju Ting's practices often blur the lines between painting and sculpture, while demonstrating the richness of acrylic paint. Being made of paint and occupying a two-dimensional picture plane, Ju Ting's works seem to align themselves with the category of painting. However, they have a clear feel for the sculptural in both form and texture deconstructing the realms of painting.
In her 'Untitled' series, the layerings are achieved by spreading various single tones of acrylic paint across a board that is laid flat on the floor. The application is often done with different tools and then left to dry, just enough, without fully hardening. It is then ready to be peeled off and combined as one among many layers of a new composition. Given the malleable plasticity of acrylic paint, Ju Ting is able to manage layers of paint in a very intuitive and sensory way.
In the 'Pearl' series, a wooden board serves as foundation onto which Ju Ting applies many layers of acrylic paint on top of each other obtaining a certain thickness. She then uses a carving knife to cut open the paint and reveal the stacked layers of colour within. Here the knife plays the role of the paint brush, forming three-dimensional brushstrokes. At the same time, the artwork's surface is embedded with many faintly visible layers. If the viewers move through the exhibition space, they will perceive the subtly shifting colours produced by the rows of vertical lines. Optical rhythm catalyses a once plain two-dimensional space, creating motion within the picture.
Dong Dong is the most recent series that Ju Ting has been experimenting with since last winter in Beijing. Living in the harsh winter climate of Northern China, Ju Ting started reflecting: What if I left the layers of acrylic paint completely hardening in the cold and dry weather? What action could I take without much manipulation of the material? The actual answer shown on the surface are holes caused bya hammer, through which cracked layers of colour are revealed. Dong Dong is an onomatopoeic word, representing the sound of hammering. Dōng also means winter in Chinese, showing Ju Ting's gratitude to the inducement of her new series.
Ju Ting was born in Shandong in 1983, and currently lives and works in Beijing. She graduated from thePrintmaking Department with a BA in 2007, and with a master in 2013.