Studio Gallery is pleased to present artist Jiang Lining's solo exhibition ISO on 8th April 2023. The exhibition focuses on artist's important paintings created in recent two years.
ISO - a professional word from the photography industry, means sensitivity to light. Different from the film or the camera's sensor, what we see with human eyes is not only the sensing of photons but mixing with our perception on the psychological level. Thus it could be a fresh and apt perspective to view the working methods of Jiang: with the daily experience of staring the space, from the body perception of light and shade, camera shooting, then digital editing, the figurative is stripped, hidden, and revived, resulting a restraining and mysterious image. He aims to work with traditional oil painting to visualise the subtlety of uncertainty and emotion.
When I was dealing with these images, the final decision was up to the visual effect on Photoshop. For instance, the shade of element A and the light source of B. Can they communicate with each other and evolve a new image?Combined with the light from the screen, it's an important step in my final decision.
— Jiang Lining.
When copying the display screen with pixels, the digital vision is revived on canvas through the materiality of oil paint, being faithful to the flattened features while inevitably retaining the uncertainty of human handwork. It alleviates the emptiness of the virtual image, triggering viewers' emotions of actual curtains, then to the virtual ones, and at the end, back to reality, the materiality of oil paint. Jiang creates a perfect transit in his paintings from the daily surroundings to the visual language. That's why there is also tenderness in his work besides rationality and restraint among the spirit of Abstract. A sense of alienation is born in the mixup of these seemingly contradictory feelings. The closer to it, the further away it will be, and the further you are, the closer it will be.
The curtain is an important motif of this series on the show. The artist is obsessed with the presentation of light with the curtain: In reality, there is always light coming through behind the curtains, forming wavy folds and shadows, which makes it the perfect medium to provide abstract factors.
The earliest turning point was when I was in a completely alien environment, when I had just arrived in Minnesota. There were very few Chinese, and I didn't know anyone. At that time, I felt that the only thing I knew was a lamp next to the bed in my room. On the surface of the lampshade, there are strips sticking out; that's why I started to try to use the form of the lampshade to paint some abstract paintings, and then vertical strips again when transitioned to the curtains.
When the artist gets along with himself, he gives expressions to the daily environment. Rather than returning to it objectively, Jiang turns it into a purely abstract form. In the process of shooting, digital editing, and then hand painting, step by step, he managed the transition of the curtain in real life as a metaphor to a reality in the painting. The step of photographing simplifies the actual object to an image, an element, which the artist will edit on the computer. By cutting, collaging, and hiding, a complete picture could finally be constructed with plenty of pleasant perspectives. Therefore, the curtain itself is not the reason why chosen as the motif, but its characteristic. With the characteristic of an image, the artist could build reality in the paintings.
Text by: Celine Zhuang, Studio Gallery
Press release courtesy Studio Gallery.
Changle Road 888, 1F
Jing'An
Shanghai
China
www.studiogallery.cn
(+86) 021 3470 0929
Tues - Sun, 10:30am - 6:00pm