Author: WANG GUANGLE 王光乐

Size: 114×116cm

Signed and dated: Painted in 2006

Estimate:

Final Price: RMB 1,100,000

LITERATURE
2007 Coffin Paint - Wang Guangle’s solo Exhibition / Published by Aye Gallery
2008 Art LITERATURE / P45 / issue 3
2008 World Art·Special Edition of Chinese Abstract Art / P217 / World Art Publishing
2013 Gray Carnival: Chinese contemporary art since 2000 / P166 Guangxi Normal University Press
signed in Chinese, dated 2006 (on the reverse)
EXHIBITED
2007 Coffin Paint – Wang Guangle Solo Exhibition, Aye Gallery, Beijing

Based on the defiance of realistic representation, abstract painting is seen as the inevitable result of the development of modernist painting in the West. However, as distinct from Western modern abstract painting in which “plane, pureness, medium”, etc. focus on visual core, abstract paintings in contemporary China are in large measure based on deep concepts in practice. In this regard, Wang Guangle is one of the most valued representatives.
“061213” debuted in the first solo exhibition of “Coffin Paint” series by Wang Guangle in 2007. It uses the intervention of the time dimension in the “waterstone” series but shifts the focus of attention to the art itself. As the artist put it, “The themes of my works are related to time. The stones in the waterstone series convey time, and the color shown in the coffin series is still the time. The “Coffin Paint” series stemmed from the artist’s childhood memories in Fujian, his hometown. The elderly people there painted their own coffins once a year until their death. This custom is an emotional relief in the process of accepting death, and also an unperturbed spirit of “being born to die”. Wang Guangle adopted the method of painting as a metaphor for contemplating the meaning of life and confronting the arrival of death. He placed the canvas on the ground and painted it again and again. Compared to the content, this laborious process and experience is what he values most. As the canvas was covered with flatly painted acrylic many times, the paint piles up on the edges of the work to produce rhino horn-like feel and texture. “In fact, others can’t see the number of layers. I thought I must leave some clues on how this process was produced. Therefore, I thickened the frame so that the colors ran either side... leaving a clue as to the process.” Without boundaries, the picture gives a sense of sculpture and exceptional integrity. As the surface and the inside dry at different speeds, the thick acrylic causes wrinkles in the middle to produce wavelike light. The time was preserved frozen through the painting of colors and waiting. The digital title of the work also represents the date when the painting was completed. The relationship with time is the theme Wang Guangle wants to convey in the works.