SHEN FAN

Shen Fan (b. 1952) has been regarded as one of the seminal figures of ‘Shanghai Abstraction’ since the 1980s. His practice is deeply rooted in China’s era of social transformation and clashing artistic ideologies, yet he demonstrates transcendent wisdom. From landscape sketches during his participation in the Down to the Countryside Movement and his industrial design training in college, to reinventing traditional painting’s emancipatory spirit through non-expressive methods, Shen forged his artistic identity through ‘depersonalisation’— transforming modernist individualism’s clamour into a contemporary continuation of classical Chinese art philosophy.

‘Colors’ showcases the artist’s decade-long experimentations on canvas, most of which are being exhibited publicly for the first time. Employing colour blocks and geometric shapes as fundamental elements, Shen Fan utilises palette knife scraping, canvas perforation, and pigment permeation techniques to eliminate subjective brushwork, transforming natural and spiritual landscapes into pure visual language. These works, created ‘after I have no I’ ( quoting the artist), mark a significant transition from a primary colour palette to the sophisticated play of diverse colours. They stems from both a capture of fleeting sensations and a contemplation of formal conventions—whether in the visual structure formed by permeating pigment through the warp and weft of the canvas, or in the silvery winter sky recorded by rhythmic brushstrokes, they all reconstruct the essence of freedom in painting through a depersonalised approach.

‘Origins’ traces the development of Shen Fan’s experimental practice since the late 1980s. Employing drafting-style lines, rubbings, and other techniques that eliminate personal touch, the artist progressively dissolved the ‘clamour of self’ in his ‘Village’ and ‘Landscape’ series, establishing a minimalist, symbolic, and deliberately flat abstract language.

The exhibition features installation sketches, archival footage, and a decade-long durational work documenting key turning points in Shen’s practice. These pieces not only reflect the artist’s astute response to the evolution of contemporary painting and artistic discourse but also reveal the internal logic behind the maturation of his abstract language—laying the foundation for Shen Fan’s later pursuit of embodying the spirit of Eastern traditional art through painting in a contemporary context.

Shen Fan started disassembling concrete forms and space in painting in the 70s and 80s, and began creating abstract painting works. Since 1998, he has been bringing Chinese painting elements into multi mediums and materials such as ceramics, neon light, metal, and music, expanding the boundaries between painting and new media. He is one of the earlier Chinese artists who combine classical aesthetics into the contemporary context to explore contemporary Chinese cultural expressions.

Shen Fan’s works are composed of different series with distinct features, and changing materials. But they maintain the temperament of the classical Chinese literati arts. His installation works of 2006 go back to Huang Binhong period and re-analyse the use of space and brush strokes of classical Chinese landscape paintings. He recreates, in relation to the new mediums, the most natural and self-examining features of the literati arts, and demonstrates the penetrating power of their universality for our contemporary times. Shen Fan’s recent works return to his intuition, and use the body as a philosophical method of viewing. Through interactions among vision, touch, text and so on, Shen Fan provides an integrated way of viewing, which embodies his shifted and more wholesome viewing logic.

About the curator

Aimee Lin is a curator, writer and art educator. She worked as an art critic and editor in her early years. She was the co-founder and the Editor of ArtReview Asia for six years. Her writings have been published in top international journals, artist catalogs and independent publications. The exhibitions and art events she curated have been held in art institutions, commercial galleries and art fairs in Beijing, Shanghai, Berlin, New York and other places.