The creative source of artist Wang Yuping is an expression on the basis of an experience in survival, the selection of subject matter focuses on the description of the plot of reality, and of an excellent 'frosty coquettish' and 'humorous' performance. He often uses a sketching technique, focusing on trifles and the state of ordinary people, to record, clip and transform the fragments, dispelling and releasing his experience, memory, hobbies and interests.
Read MoreIn terms of thematic structure, Wang Yuping’s work is not any grand narrative, but the fundamental part of the real life for ordinary people. On the one hand, by impromptu means, he puts the characters, scenery, items that are closely related in everyday life into his painting, making them like simple, plain details mixed together, to present the concrete aspect of daily life and the simple charm of painting itself; on the other hand, imagination of the evaporated 'ownership' which is retained in the memory and the 'homeland' which is deeply connected to personal life, though it is impossible to give up the emotional associations between them. When the cultural memory of loading the daily life space increasingly becomes floating, dissociative residue, Wang Yuping’s busy postmodern creation, constitutes the necessity and value of art in expressing daily experiences.
Perhaps, because the narrative of grand history or reality is often trapped in empty embarrassment, Wang Yuping is no longer deliberately seeking a performance of the metaphor meaning of the 'cultural symbol' of the object. But he emphasizes the rich and delicate real individual experience, or a promotion and new discovery of the meaning of a bourgeois, secular life. So that the existing cultural memory is solidified, retained and resisted against in the lost imagination.
Wang Yuping (b.1962 in Beijing) is known for his gritty, comic book style portraits of urban life in China. His paintings are playful, feature rough, tough or absurd Beijing characters and seem to spy on life in the inner city as a kind of Wang Shuo of the art’s world. He entered the Ceramics Department of Central Academy of Arts and Design in 1983 and changes to the Oil Painting Department of the Central Academy of Fine Arts in 1985. Since he graduated in 1989, he has been teaching in the Oil Painting Department of CAFA.
In 1990, he participated in the Exhibition by the faculty of the Oil Painting Department at Central Academy of Fine Arts. In 1992, he participated in the New Generation Art Exhibition. In 1993, he had his second exhibition in National Art Museum of China. In the same year, Wang Yuping’s Works was published in Taiwan. In 1994, he took part in the Exhibition of Works Nominated by Chinese Art Critics; two of his works have been collected by the National Art Museum of China. In 1997, he participated in the 47th Venice Biennial. His works have exhibited in various notable exhibitions in China and abroad and were introduced to the American readers in the magazine of Art News. By placing us in intimate spaces with arresting, descriptive personal images, Wang Yuping continues his exploration of urban culture and social change.
