Zhong Biao

 Chinese contemporary artist, Zhong Biao was in1968 in Chongqing. He graduated from the Beijing Central Academy of Fine Arts. He has a unique painting style, a kind of explosive, realistic pop art, bringing past, present and future together in one story.

Zhong Biao; "I like to paint people in black and white because people are temporary - they will eventually leave the world and become
the past. However, some buildings live longer than people; they continue to exist in the world. This is why I paint people in black and white and the background in colour. The contrast with colour is to highlight this dichotomy.

Sometimes, unfortunate things suddenly appear - they become the past, and then the future pushes forward. When today arrives, today becomes the past. It's a continuous process - a cycle. And everyone in the world is constituted from pieces of time. Therefore, in my paintings I can freely co-ordinate the past, present and future.

I don’t want to force my own understanding or interpretation of my paintings on the audience. The mixture of images within each of my paintings is like a combination of controversial elements in life. We don’t have to understand everything we see in each painting. Like life, we cannot understand everything that we have seen or experienced. In my paintings, Eastern and Western, historical and modern opposites coexist, reflecting the reality of today’s lifestyle.

I have only one dream: That the people I have painted will, many years from now, visit the people of the future on my behalf, taking along with them this chaotic world." (from Art Scene China)

 

Idris Khan

Idris Khan creates big multi-layered prints, often using existing photographs, postcards, paintings or books. Each layer is visible and adds to the eery feeling. He reinvents the existing image, adding his own personal touch. It might look like a drawing, as it has the same handmade feel to it. Idris Khan was born in Great Britain.
Idris Khan: "Every layer is an effect that needs to be created. All the scans are done at 100% and then I choose the amount of opacity I wish to have with every layer. Each layer is a fallible human decision. When I layer each scan, there is a decision made as to what I want to stay and what has to disappear. This process allows me to cut out the camera completely." Read more here.

schilte & portielje

Huub Schilte and Jacqueline Portielje work and live together in Rotterdam  -   The Netherlands. They started out as an architectural designer and a painter. But now they work together without a preconceived plan or subject. You can read a good description on how they create these intriguing works of art on their 'about us' page.
They have their own unique style, but it does remind me of Sarah Moon's work. Different but the same atmosphere and strangeness.

Akihito Takuma

Contemporary painter from Kumamoto, Japan. Most works from the ongoing series "Flight of lines" are massive, dark, strange blurry landscapes.

About this series Akihito Takuma says; "Following a year in Europe studying painting, I noticed how hard it was for paint to dry in Japan because of the high humidity. This made me more conscious of the environmental differences between the two places, and inspired me to make this work. Before the paint had dried, from top to bottom. Then I chose a landscape with a perspective that made the horizon seem as if it continued forever. It is my hope that in this work, order will be maintained but at the same time superseded, and the instant that a dynamic, positive and free form of energy is released might be expressed."

Leng Wen

This young Chinese artist was born in DingDao in 1990. Leng Wen lives and works in Beijing. These C-prints from the desktop series are refreshing and promising.

Wang Qingsong

Wang Qingsong's staged photographs are darkly humorous. You might feel the content to be absurd, but in fact it is highly critical towards consumerism and capitalism. The very large prints are of technical high standard.
'take a look at the urban people's life. we dine at mcdonald's, KFC, and pizza hut. we drink cola, starbucks' coffe and lipton tea. we live in roman fantasy, lincoln park, vancouver forest and east provence. we drive benz, BMW and lamborghini. all these western consumer products 'modernize' this originally agricultural country. however such life in high fashion is so ridiculous, contradictory and crazy. the chinese traditions and elite culture fail to have energy and vigor, deserving to be trashed. this is the contemporary china in its massive scale.'
- Wang Qingsong.

 

Competition

 Dormitory

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ICU

Temple

Jon McMillan

Fredericksburg (Virginia) based Jon McMillan about his sculptures; "Sculpture provides limitless variations and possibilities, feeding my curiosity and passion for exploration."
A combination of different materials like terra cotta, resin, steel...give birth to an array of strange forms. Surrealistic fossils, weird deep sea life forms, alienated remains... is what comes to mind.

Interrupted

Emptied

Elevate

 postponed