Piece of Life 13
Liang Yuanwei
梁远苇
Production date
2007
Object Detail
Media
oil on linen
Measurements
162 x 130 cm
Notes
Liang Yuanwei became known for richly textured impasto paintings, produced in an unusual technique that the self-taught painter invented. Her early canvases simulated patterned cloth – checked, striped, or intricately flowered like traditional quilts. She collected fabric remnants from friends and relatives, some with a personal significance and attached to memories, others of a deliberately banal nature, like striped flannelette sheets or pyjamas. Her meticulous technique results in a recreation of these fabrics, creating an effect reminiscent of modernist ‘all-over’ abstraction. For the Piece of Life series she painstakingly recreated the colours, patterns and textures of her chosen fabric samples, working slowly and laboriously, section by section. The paintings suggest the domestic and the homely; the labour of generations of Chinese women. Her practice is deliberate, controlled and meditative, underpinned by her reading of philosophy and knowledge of Chinese and Western art history. In particular, Liang admires painters such as Agnes Martin and Ad Reinhardt, with whom she showed in Beijing Voice: Leaving Realism Behind, at Pace Gallery in 2011. The curators of this exhibition, which also included works by Mark Rothko and Bridget Riley, identified a growing tendency towards abstraction in Chinese art.
Accession number
2007.058