Supernatural
Visions of the Future
In imperial China, scholars, painters and poets often retreated into the mountains in uncertain times, finding solace from political intrigue in the harmonious relationships of yin and yang in the natural world. The ancient Chinese believed that mountains were the home of the gods. Today, mountains are bulldozed to make way for new roads and high-speed rail lines leading to mega-cities and the skies above too often choked with ‘fog and haze’. This is the world of the artists shown in SUPERNATURAL.
Uncanny events and strange transformations abound in their voyage through earthly and unearthly realms. Hybrid, insect-winged men fly overhead, dystopian neon-lit cities are patrolled by one-eyed surveillance creatures, and mountains are made not of rock, but from knitted wire, projected light or slabs of oil paint. These artists apply a contemporary visual language to examine our endangered world, and their work is a wake-up call for humanity. Even so, their practice is informed by traditions of ink painting and calligraphy and by a Chinese tendency to look inwards, as if to the hidden caves of the Immortals. Chinese artists once looked for worlds within worlds, just as garden designers created separate ‘rooms’ that could be glimpsed from a crooked bridge, or through a moon window. Today, though, they are as likely to view nature on a pixelated screen as to see it through a window. SUPERNATURAL takes us on a journey through this re-shaped landscape of the twenty-first century.
dimensions variable
100 x 125 cm
dimensions variable
150 x 187.5 cm
100 x 125 cm
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170 x 575 cm
120 x 180 cm
23 min 7 sec
3 min 14 sec
25 minutes
172 x 260cm
110 x 220 cm x 4 pieces
215 x 230 x 64 cm
22 minutes
250 x 400 cm
204 x 136 cm
180 x 122 cm
both 50 x 60 cm
dimensions variable
12 pcs each 31 x 20 cm
both 210 x 175 cm
150 x 200 cm
120 x 200 cm
each 14.5 x 21.5 cm
160 x 120 cm
120 x 160 cm