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BIOGRAPHY | SELECTED WORKS | RECENT EXHIBITIONS | SELECTED PRESS | INTERVIEW
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BIOGRAPHY
Wei Jia was born in 1975 in Chengdu, Sichuan. He attended Sichuan Fine Arts Institute, where he majored in printmaking and graduated in 1999. Since his early career, Wei Jia’s works, including not only his highly acclaimed prints but also the oil on canvas in his transformative years, recreate with simple, smooth lines and bright, flat and graphic colors the restlessness and innocence of the new generation of urban youth who are just stepping into the real world. His signature series An Uncivilized Spring, depicts the confrontation between teenagers among trees, flowers, cliffs and sparse urban landscapes. These images demonstrate the confusion and cruelty of growing up, and turned later on into darker and colder ones. Paintings produced in this period retain the portrayal of teenagers – among them the self-image of the artist appears repeatedly- and are swept into scenes of self-denial, questioning, destruction and a renewed search for selfhood. The classicizing and theatricalization of scenes and human figures, as well as a heavy sense of religious ritual entailed in the plot, are all rendered by the inner turmoil of the young generation who are approaching maturity and are trapped in the rapid transformation of urban and youth culture. The series also made Wei one of the few persistent creators among today’s young artists who continue the exploration of the individual experience and mood via the poetics of painting and the classical representational vocabulary.
Wei Jia has exhibited extensively and internationally, including “Please fasten your seat belt as we are experiencing some turbulence” (Leo Xu Projects, Shanghai, 2017), “Within Sight–Chinese New Painting” at Post Financial Crisis Era (Taylor Foundation, Paris, 2015), “Spectacle Reconstruction-Chinese Contemporary Art ”(MODEM Centre for Modern and Contemporary Arts, Debrecen, 2013), “Spin: The First Decade of the New Century” (Today Art Museum, Beijing, 2012), “The Frank-Suss Collection” (Saatchi Gallery, London, 2012), “CHINA MANIA” (Arken Museum of Modern Art, Copenhagen, 2009), “The Power of Practice – the Second Document Exhibition of Contemporary Chinese Prints” (Nanjing Museum, Nanjing, 2008), “Visual Experiences First Exhibition” (National Art Museum of China, Beijing, 2007), “China’s Neo Painting, A Triumph Over Images ”(Shanghai Art Museum, Shanghai, 2007), “Energy: Spirit, Body, Material— The First Today’s Documents ”(Today Art Museum, Beijing, 2007), etc. His recent solo exhibitions include “Sudden Brilliance ” (Mixhael Ku Gallery, Taipei, 2017), “Mildly Biting, Encountering Spring” (Leo Xu Projects, Shanghai, 2015), “PORTRAIT” (Michael Ku Gallery, Taipei, 2012), “Dim Light on the Opposite Shore: Wei Jia Solo Exhibition” (Star Gallery, Beijing, 2011), “In the Distant Fields and Smoky Woods ” (Tomio Koyama Gallery, Tokyo, 2009), etc.
Wei Jia lives and works in Chongqing.
Download the complete artist biography.
SELECTED WORKS
Wei Jia, "All Four One", 2013, Acrylic on canvas, 61x81 cm
Wei Jia, "Force", 2014, Acrylic on canvas, 70 x 60 cm
Wei Jia, "Light in the Cloud", 2014, Acrylic on canvas, 190 x 220 cm
Wei Jia, "Mildly Biting Encountering Spring", 2014, Acrylic on canvas , 60 x 43 cm
Wei Jia, "Mount St Denis", 2014, Acrylic on canvas, 60 x 70 cm
Wei Jia, "Sea Pictures", 2014, Acrylic on canvas, 190 x 280 cm
Wei Jia, "Time Elapsed", 2015, Acrylic on canvas, 110 x 180 cm
Wei Jia, "Time Flies", 2014, Acrylic on canvas , 150 x 200 cm
Wei Jia, "Bath III", 2015, Acrylic on canvas, 70 x 60 cm
Wei Jia, "Kibune Stage", 2017, Acrylic on canvas, 70 x 60 cm
For more works and projects by the artist, download the portfolio in pdf.
RECENT EXHIBITIONS
“Please fasten your seat belt as we are experiencing some turbulence”, Leo Xu Projects, Shanghai, 2017
“Sudden Brilliance” (solo), MICHAEL KU GALLERY, Taipei, Taiwan, 2017
“Mildly Biting, Encountering Spring” (solo), LEO XU PROJECTS, Shanghai, China, 2015
“Within Sight–Chinese New Painting at Post Financial Crisis Era”, Taylor Foundation, Paris, France, 2015
“In Memory of a Landscape II: Lu Song, Wei Jia and Xie Fan”, James Cohan Gallery, Shanghai, 2015
“Within Sight — Chinese New Painting at Post Financial Crisis Era”, Taylor Foundation, Paris, 2015
“Landscape of Man”, Michael Ku Gallery, Taipei, Taiwan, 2014
“The Immortal Scenery”, Hive Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing, China, 2014
City Phantasm 2013 Chongqing Youth Art Biennale, Chongqing Art Museum,Chongqing, China, 2013
“SPECTACLE RECONSTRUCTION – CHINESE CONTEMPORARY ART”,MODEM , Centre for Modern and Contemporary Arts, Debrecen, Hungary, 2013
“PORTRAIT Wei Jia solo exhibition” (solo), Michael Ku Gallery, Taipei, Taiwan, 2012
“Spin: The First Decade of the New Century”, Today Art Museum, Beijing, China, 2012
“Water stains on the wall- The carrier of formation”, Zhejiang Art Museum, Zhejiang, China, 2012
SELECTED PRESS
Chinese contemporary art news, “What will happen in 2017″, by Chole Jiang, p44, January, 2017 [download pdf]
Artforum, “Shanghai Wei Jia Leo Xu Projects”,by Fiona He, p403-404, September, 2015 [download pdf]
ART.INVESTMENT, “Poster of Wei Jia’s show”, P2, Issue 91, May 2015 [download pdf]
CHINESE CONTEMPORARY ART NEWS, “Mildly Biting, Encountering Spring, Wei Jia Solo Exhibition”, by Zheng Naiming,Issue 124, May 2015 [download pdf]
