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ART AND HUMAN RIGHTS:
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Drill Hall Gallery |
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Guan Wei was born in Beijing in 1957 and graduated from the Department of Fine Arts at Beijing Capital University in 1986. Following the Tiananmen Square massacre of 1989, Guan Wei left China to take up an artist-in-residency at the Tasmanian School of Art. He undertook two further residencies at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney (1992-93) and at the Canberra School of Art, Australian National University (1993-94) and has since gained significant reputation as a contemporary painter in Australia and internationally. His work, which draws on contrasts between Australia and China, has been included in numerous important contemporary exhibitions, including The Rose Crossing, Lines of Descent, the Third Asia-Pacific Triennial, Australian Perspecta, Silent Energy at the Museum of Modern Art, Oxford, Mao Goes Pop at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney and New Art form China, Hong Kong Arts Centre. In 2003 his work will be represented in an exhibition of Australian art in Berlin at the Hamburger Bahnhof. Guan Wei currently lives and works in Sydney. For this exhibition he will be represented by a monumental painting on the theme of refugees and movements of peoples by boat. Principally a painter, Guan Wei sometimes combines his paintings with installations. Since leaving China, Guan Wei's work has explored themes of cultural and geographical difference, specifically through his direct socio-political experiences of both China and Australia. While referring to cultural difference, his self-devised, complex symbolism also prompts reflection on environmental and ecological issues. Commenting on the impact of capitalist development on the fate of the natural world, the artist has said, 'In Classical times people used to nest in the mountains, forests and lakes and from their "nests" hatched poems about the fields and landscape paintings . . . Today it is so hard to find a place to nest. There are no mountains in which you can lose yourself, no ancient forests in which to hide, and speedboats churn up all the waters of the lakes and streams. Even the temples have become tourist spots. There's nowhere to hide in China . . . and others yet, nesting in the outback of Australia, gaze into the firmament and see the Southern Cross. But the most brilliant nest and hardest to cleave to is the one found in the jungles of steel and concrete . . .'
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Guan Wei
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This page has been authorized by Professor Iain McCalman, Director HRC as relevant
officer. |
