"Afterball series" comes from Wang Meiyi’'s more than 500 shaping of the "sphere" in one year. After being familiar with the various techniques of printmaking for seven years, in 2015, Wang Meiyi tried to complete a coherent improvisation. She chose "sphere", fused with her individual feelings at that moment. She kneaded the spheres and the concave or convex details and photographed the 3D sphere from various angles. Finally, using photogravure and steel etching to complete the prints.
Throw back to the two-person exhibition “Reborn in Spring - Wang Meiyi, Xiang Hao” at Once Gallery.
Wang Meiyi’s passion for original print stems from the unique restoring ability of the print language - the narrative of the image and the material texture of the layout (such as etching, silk screen, various unique editions, etc.) resonate with each other and come from the indentation and imprint.
The 11 pieces of Xiang Hao's works were completed by him burning his own paintings on paper. The series of works, titled "Maps" started in 2017. He tries to observe, control and guess the natural law between fire and paper. Ink, charcoal, acrylic and other mixed media painting circles and lines represent the contours of the topography and landforms, and also represent the territory of power.
There is a natural match between emoji and cyanotype. Both are the art of paraphrasing and interpretation: cyanotypes are words left by light, emojis are traces left by emotions. “I often try to write a long text to reply to a message, but end up with an emoji. They are vague and precise, vivid and emotionally tiny. To be honest, they may represent an attempt to "invisible" in the crowd, a fear of being misunderstood.” - Wang Meiyi
In the spring of 2022, the world is increasingly showing signs of tension. Our current situation is the trace of countless contests. Xiang Hao's works on paper - "Map" series began in 2018, during a trip to Grand Canyon, he was fascinated by the unique landforms and Indian culture. However, this is not the direct inspiration. This trip is more like a "disengagement". He believes that for each of us in the contemporary era, nature is no longer the landscape, but all kinds of social phenomena.
The work lasted three years finish. On the contour lines of the map, he outlined by intertwined charcoal and painted a layer of freehand patterns in ink, and acrylic, covered with ashes of fire. Folding and burning the paper is the technical logic of the traditional Chinese tie-dyeing process. In the process of tie-dyeing the cloth, the part of the cloth that is squeezed and tightened cannot be dyed. In the same way, when a piece of paper is folded to a limit where it cannot be folded again, it is like a "fragment" that is difficult to burn, and the making of progress is between controlled and uncontrolled. Where does the fire go? It cannot be decided by human will.
