Jeng Jundian Leaf II, 2014; Oil on canvas, 200x300cm
Jeng Jundian’s solo exhibition “Details” will be held from 10 Oct to 08 Nov at Eslite Gallery, showing his concrete paintings and signature “colored line” works. With his ant-like vision, Jeng probes into the extraordinary minutiae of people and things in everyday contexts. His works often measure up to two to three meters in height and width, for which the portrayed images transcend their quotidian significance and give off a sense of surrealist immensity and the aura of life.
Jeng’s composition is not particularly theatrical, and he seldom uses primary colors or arranges paints in blocks. Instead, he prefers secondary colors to portray the details of prosaic things. The spectacles and objects he encountered in his studio, in different places of Taiwan, or in Paris are translated into his paintings. Many new works attest to his recent preoccupation with materials and textures. In Curtain III, he utilizes warm colors to capture the varying states of sunshine as it penetrates the curtain or refracts on its patterns; every inch of the cloth is granted distinct beauty due to the gradation of light. During his working process, Jeng often changes a painting’s position and observes how the paints’ effects vary with those changes, in the hope to make his works diversified in appearances and details. Take Leaf II as an example, spectators viewing it from some distance may find the same-colored leaf and the table integrated into each other, but with closer examination, they may discover more subtle variations of different colors. The color lines, converging and separating on the canvas, combine the plant’s fibers and the invisible longitudes and latitudes, spinning out a world that is constantly stretching and throbbing.
Thus, Jeng’s subjects and style are metaphoric of a kind of life philosophy: “To see a world in a grain of sand.” Namely, humans, things, and space are not separate entities but entangled in a complex and mutually influencing ecology. In the space of the grids, Jeng deliberately leaves the drafting pencil marks, expecting to preserve his own emotional fluctuations amidst the rational composition. As he remarked, “I don’t want my works to resemble the rigid etching prints, but I hope the severely controlled works can contain some traces of my creative impulse.”
Painting is the medium of Jeng’s communication with his inner self. His mentality as a creator evolves from the aggressive expression of earlier years to the composed introspection at present. In the marathon of strength and willpower, Jeng never ceases to explore the limits of painterly languages and awaits to seize the moment when “mind, hand, and canvas” become united together. “Where there is mind, there is a canvas,” Jeng firmly declares. Thus produced, paintings can possess singular and sincere power.
About the exhibition
Date: Oct 10, 2015 - Nov 8, 2015
Opening: Oct 10, 2015, Saturday
Venue: Eslite Gallery
Courtesy of the artist and Eslite Gallery.
