Author: SHANG YANG 尚扬

Size: 61×80cm

Signed and dated: Painted in 1995

Estimate: 800,000 -1,200,000

Final Price: RMB 1,150,000

signed in Pinyin and dated 1995

In the early 1990s, inspired by the disorderly splicing in the production of folk Baina cloth, Shang Yang started the creation of Grand scenery series. In the Third Scenery With Sunshine (Lot 1122), Shang Yang creates a mountain with his unique BAINABUTI. Different from other works of‘grand scenery with sunshine’, this painting does not appear those touching consumer culture symbols, but creates the original ecological appearance in the environment that has not been destroyed through rough strokes and textures, while the rain irrigation on the mountains and the growth of everything below suggest an ideal harmonious state.
In 1994, Shang Yang began to create the‘Grand Scenery’ series, and this Sale (Lot 1123) is a rare work named separately in this series. From the perspective of the schema, Sale (Lot 1123) has a typical pyramid composition of the‘grand scenery’ series, just like a towering mountain, like the bumps and obstacles that must be climbed and crossed in the process of moving forward. At the top of the picture, a small piece of white smoke erupted from the crater, with four gray letters‘sale’ written on it, which is a sign often hung in stores during discounts and promotions, and a typical symbol of the commodity economy. The background color of the picture is typical‘Shang Yang Yellow’. The main body of the picture is outlined with thick black lines, gray and white color blocks. On the white color block on the left, a dark cloud, a dilapidated high-rise building, and a smoky lung are vaguely drawn in gray. The thick black lines around drip down like tears while the paint is still wet. On the right is a chaotic gray. In the middle of the right is a plane with simple strokes. Next to it is a muddy red line spreading upward like blood, and it is like suppressed magma ready to erupt at any time. The whole picture is full of a strong flavor of industrialization. It seems to be a heavy sigh, telling about the endless environmental and social problems accompanying the rapid economic development. It is a‘accusation against the abnormal development of human society and a sigh about the contradictory relationship between man and nature’.
After Shang Yang’s Deconstruction and geometric reconstruction, the original landscape disappeared, replaced by a pure visual paradigm, a landscape style that is divorced from the representation but has great refining significance. ‘As much as I like the spirit of the works, I also explore the presentation style and language expression of the works with all my enthusiasm. The two are mixed together in the process of my artistic creation. It is difficult to distinguish which is the first, which is the least and which is the most important.’. Shang Yang achieves transcendence in the process of daily life experience and elimination of meaning by repeating and eliminating the meaning of daily life experience. Therefore, its exploration of the localization of non concrete experiments also provides a new experience for contemporary art to go out of the Western worship in cultural concepts and the western mode in expression.