The Watcher / Zhang Gong

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张弓闻名于以一群古怪角色为主的挪用人像绘画。艺术家在这些绘画中运用标志性的流行文化象 征——南方公园中的角色、迈克尔·杰克逊、米老鼠、超级无敌掌门狗,以及其个人的创作。运用这些 文化符号,艺术家替换了广为人知的艺术作品中的人物形象,例如出现在爱德华·霍珀的《夜鹰》和乔 治·修拉的《在拉·格兰德·加特岛的一个星期天下午》中的人物。张弓用他的画笔为这些作品中的场 景着上鲜明的当代色彩,将这些人物角色聚集在一种怀旧式的,史诗般的传统好莱坞场景中,重写了古 老的艺术史叙述。这种在张弓作品中所体现出的将宏大的舞台布景与动画相结合的趋势,使他受到广泛关注并获得了多个国际奖项。

Zhang Gong is best known for his appropriated figurative paintings featuring a coterie of oddball characters. In these paintings, iconic symbols of pop culture – South Park characters, Michael Jackson, Mickey Mouse, Wallace and Gromit – as well as Zhang Gong’s own creations, replace human figures within familiar artworks such as Edward Hopper’s ‘Nighthawks,’ and George Seurat’s ‘Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte.’ With his paintbrush,ZhangGong rewrites the archaic narrative of art history by rendering these scenes in explicit contemporary light and by amassing these characters in a style reminiscent of an epic, traditional Hollywood set. Zhang Gong’s tendency towards the grand mise-en-scène also translates into his animation work for which he has received several international awards.

▽ Sister Pan’s Cafe，2012

▽ Flying Tigers, 2015

▽ Lovely, 2015

▽ Mr Panda, 2015

《夜远去》系列融合了张弓精细的人物绘画,与千变万化的不断扩张的原子的宇宙结构。这些绘画 呈现出许多富有动态的充斥着物件的漩涡,其中包括:飞机、船、和飞翔的“英雄”,例如铁臂阿童木、麦克·沃佐斯基(怪兽电力公司)、骷髅杰克(圣诞夜惊魂),以及张弓作品中频繁出现的代表人类自身的熊猫形象。

The “Dissolve the Night” series conflatesZhang Gong’s meticulous character drawing with the universe’s structures of ever-shifting, ever-expanding atoms. These canvasses present swirls of kinetic objects in the dozens: planes, ships and flying ‘heroes’ such as Astro Boy, Mike Wazowski (Monsters Inc.), Jack Skellington (The Nightmare Before Christmas), as well as Zhang Gong’s frequently appearing panda, a figure which represents the human self.

▽ 《夜远去》,  “Dissolve the Night”

艺术家作品中的熊猫形象也出现在这次展览的另一个系列,《飞往虚空》中。运用极简的手法,艺 术家描绘出一个熊猫位于中心的交叉路口的情景。带着翅膀并悬浮在画面中,这只熊猫需要对飞行的方 向作出选择。他已准备好飞行但却不知自己的路在何方。与此同时,由大量明亮色彩构成的交叉路口光 芒四射,为整副作品更增添了精神活力。

The panda also makes an appearance in another series of the exhibition, “Flying to the Void.” Here, the artist has painted minimalist shapes in the form of a crossroad and has placed the panda at the center. Winged and suspended in the paintings, the panda is faced with achoice in direction. He is equipped to fly but does not understand his own path yet. At the same time, the crossroads, which are painted in an array of luminous hues, appear like rays of light and charge the paintings with a spiritual vigor.

▽《飞往虚空》, “Flying to the Void”

最终《守望者》系列展示了在一片幻想的森林中的静谧叙事,密集的树丛将整个画面分割成公式化 的图案。在树干间的空隙里,作品中的人物表演着迷你剧,放佛每一个格子都是一个独立的舞台;这些 人物间的情景互动似乎互不相关,但却被这片奇怪森林的巨大场域所相互联系。张弓对社会的拷问清晰 的体现在这里——在这片阴影覆盖的土地上,艺术家通过研究这些移动的却又放佛无法被看见的生命体 来提出质疑:这些人在看着谁?谁又在看着他们?

Finally, “The Watcher” series presents quiet narratives in an imagined forest, thick with trees set apart in a formulaic pattern. In the spaces between the trunks of these trees, characters act out mini scenes as if each grid were an individual stage; these interactions appear to have no correlation to one another, yet are connected by the larger enclosure of this strange forest. ZhangGong’s questions about society ring clearest here, in his studies of these beings that move as if unseen in these shadowed lands. The artist asks: who are these people guarding and protecting? And who is watching over them?

▽ 《守望者》,“The Watcher”

2016 年 6 月 30 日至 8 月 19 日, 北京艺术家、动画创作人张弓的绘画个展 《守望者》将在凯尚画廊展出。而三组新的绘画系列,这些作品体现了艺术家的作品向抽象表 达发展并日渐成熟的过程。

Klein Sun Gallery is pleased to announce “The Watcher,” a solo exhibition of paintings by Beijing-based artist and animator Zhang Gong, on view from June 30 through August 19, 2016. This marks the artist’s fourth exhibition with the gallery and shows his first new body of work since 2012. In the exhibition “The Watcher,”ZhangGongpresents three new series of paintings revealing the artist’s maturation in themes of abstraction.

▽ 绘画个展 《守望者》, solo exhibition “The Watcher”

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