de Sarthe Gallery is pleased to announce the opening of Ma Sibo’s first solo exhibition at the gallery, Habitat
opening on October 15th. The exhibition features a new body of work and will continue through November
27th.
Ma Sibo’s trained hand is most well known for imbuing desolated and lifeless environments with a meditative
sense of romantic nostalgia. His use of a technique similar to sfumato, where shapes and colors merge together,
allow for his canvases to radiate an entrapping energy.
In his newest series of work, Ma Sibo departs from portraying desolated scenes by adding various animals into
his paintings. Through this addition, he initiates a conversation about life and the environments in which we
live. For example, the egrets in Shore (2016) appear to be filled with a dynamic energy until one realises the birds
are taxidermy and staged in an empty museum. The strange dialogue between setting and subject matter within
the radiating canvas posits an existential question about idilic, yet artificially constructed, life within temporary
walls. This notion is reinforced in the only painting in the show that focuses on a human subject, Night Worker
(2016). Here, a man stands motionless gazing at a barren, ill-managed landscape, his energy as forlorn as the
frozen birds in the museum. The man stands outside of any walls, but still seems trapped by the space
surrounding him.
Born in Tianjin in 1979, Ma Sibo earned his BA in oil painting from the Tianjin Academy of Fine Arts in 2001.
Afterwards, he traveled to France and in 2004 earned a National diploma from Ecole Supérieure d’Art et de
Design — Toulon Provence Medterraneee. He also earned MA in Fine Art from Ecole Supérieure des Beaux-
Arts de Nîmes in 2006. In earlier stages of his career, his works has been shown in China, France, Belgium and and
more recently in Art Basel Hong Kong.
About the exhibition
Opening: October 15, 2016, 16:00 - 18:30
Duration: October 15 – November 27, 2016
Venue: de Sarthe Gallery
Location: 328-D, Caochangdi, Chaoyang District, 100015 Beijing, China
Courtesy of the artist and de Sarthe Gallery.
