Artist’s Statement

This exhibition features two series of artworks related to the concept of “painting”. As an art media and act of creation, it is also a noun or a verb.

The ground floor exhibits part of the works from the series titled ‘Painting is painting is painting is painting is…?’ Rooted in the reflections of painting, this series delves deeply into the definitions of art and media. Without using the brush and colour, it employs the canvas – originally the image carrier – as the major material to create pictures. The marks made by movements and actions (for example, incising, unweaving, pasting and overlapping etc.) on the canvas are the components of images. Also, creation is not confined to the front of a “painting”; the back of the painting and canvas are equally important. Similarly, painting is no longer confined to a plane surface; the three dimensions and depth of an image are no more an illusion, but substantially occupy the available space. The white image places the work in a state of ambiguity – whether it is a completed painting or a carrier awaiting the adding of lines, forms, and colours. Moreover, the white painting suggests that the work has extended from the scope of the frame to the white space of the exhibition venue, making it part of the work. This concept is further strengthened by the employment of white canvas to “draw” the architectural structures of the venue. It is needless to use the expressions of perspective and chiaroscuro to reconstruct shape and distance. A “real space”painting was created, enabling the audience to enter the work in person. It seeks to obscure the definition and boundary of artistic creation – painting is a painting, a sculpture, an installation and also an exhibition venue, which all are the art media carrying concepts.

The second floor shows another series of works, conveying the concept of ‘painting the real space’ from static media to moving images, from indoor area to city space in a combination of time element. The series ‘Painting is painting is painting is painting is…?’ focuses on various physical structures — the plane surface of the canvas, frames and shapes of installations and architecture. The video works titled ‘Drawing the urban space’ on the second floor started with the ‘negative space’ beyond the substantial entity of the city.

An impression of a city is largely related to its physicality — the shapes and structures of architectures, landmarks, or roads as they are tangible, visible and touchable. In terms of the realms which are not occupied by substantial entities but with air flowing around, these are void spaces filled with untouchable nihility (just as the scenes shown in the video) and easily neglected by people. However, while we are living and engaging in activities in these spaces, bit by bit, day by day, we have left a countless number of breaths and intangible traces. Though it is so transient, they are the living and truest records of life. This work attempts to use the dynamic ‘brushworks’ – the moving trajectory of human beings and vehicles – to expose the intangible ‘negative space’, thereby exploring the relationship between the city environment and ourselves from another perspective. While city development has created numerous large and tall edifices, should we contemplate the price our original “space” has paid for this?

Bianca Lei Sio Chong,

2012

participating works：

– painting is painting is painting is painting is…AFA Beijing

– painting is painting is painting is painting is…relationship

– painting is painting is painting is painting is…depth

– painting is painting is painting is painting is…behind the canvas

– painting is painting is painting is painting is…frame

– painting is painting is painting is painting is…space

– painting is painting is painting is painting is painting ……

– drawing the urban space–cramming

– drawing the urban space–mapping

– drawing the urban space–negative space

– drawing the urban space–deforming

related links: AFA (Art for All)，

– interview：drawing space — a female artist Bianca Lei with her white paintings- part 1 (in Mandarin）

– interview：drawing space — a female artist Bianca Lei with her white paintings- part 2 (in Mandarin)