West Bund Art & Design Fair | Artist: Shi Guowei

Kyoto, 2016, Hand-colored black and white photo, 148.5 x 139.2 cm


Shi Guowei studied photography at Fachhochschule, Dortmund. For his graduation, he took inspiration from the technique of hand-coloring photographs influenced from his parent’s generation. Through processes of using Kodak C-print, he first chemically develops the black and white print onto photographic paper – this becomes the ‘base color’ – before final hand painting the final layers to complete it. It is a traditional hand technique, which shares more than one hundred years of history with black and white photography – and it reappears again to beguile a new audience. For a long period of time, photography has become associated as an ‘objective’ form of reproducing objects. Taken this idea further, today the photographic technologies have reached a point of practically becoming an omnipotent presence in our lives. Shi Guowei uses his own work to challenge this point – ‘There is still distance between color perceived with the naked eye, which far surpasses that of the lens. Color obtained in color photography still falls short to the vivid qualities of nature – in fact it pales in comparison. On the contrary, through the mind and its memory of the photographed scene, color is mixed and applied according to what feels appropriate to the scene – adding lucidity to the image as well as a heightened accuracy.’ As the mind opens, the artist uses the eye to photographically capture images of interest - information is then stored in the memory of a ‘micro-chip’. It involves a continuous accumulation of things, but also a perpetual procedure of screening, verification, and layering, which together enhances the process of image recognition.

Low-Pressure, 2015, Hand-colored black and white photo, 160 x 164.1 cm

Starting in 2013, Shi Guowei has attempted to incorporate the ‘Cavalier Perspective’ into photography, a perspective often found in Chinese scrolls - creating within scenes an array of images, which canbe read in a dynamic way. Later in Low-Pressure (2015), one of the first works in a new series, or whether facing the Four Girls Mountain, a forest, objects or scenes from around the artist, he employs a similar method to photography throughout. As a result, he neither tries to ‘devise’ a subject nor does he overtly emphasize the connection to the work’s structure – in this way, the objects photographed in the scenes appear imperturbable like the everyday.

 

Tilt, 2016, Hand-colored black and white photo, 112 x 241.5 cm

From the 90s, new media art in China has been carried by the popular tastes of the international art world. As a result, traditions such as categories of oil painting, sculpture, and photography have been pushed to the periphery. Facing this abrupt change to an international context, techniques and disciplines of art, which once enamored people, face questions of how to respond and answer to this situation. Aside from conceptual art, what other possibilities do we have? The work of Shi Guowei is one resolute response to such a question.

Lab - A, 2013, Hand-colored black and white photo, 175 x 190 cm

West Bund Art & Design Fair | Artist: Shi Guowei

About Shi Guowei

West Bund Art & Design Fair | Artist: Shi Guowei

Shi Guowei (b. 1977), currently lives and works in Beijing, and studied at the Fachhochschule, Dortmund. Through processes of using Kodak C-print, he first chemically develops the black and white print onto photographic paper – this becomes the ‘base color’ – before final hand painting the final layers to complete it. Major exhibitions include: Every Skyscraper Is Built from the Ground, the 2nd Changjiang International Photography and Video Biennale, Chongqing (2017) ; Don’t Shoot The Painter, Galleriad’ Arte Moderna Milano, Milan (2015); The Civil Power, Minsheng Art Museum, Beijing (2015); The Bright Eye Of The Universe, Sundaram Tagore Gallery, New York (2015); Made in China, London (2013); 6th Chengdu Biennale, Chengdu (2013); ‘Pop Sensation’ from the UBS Art Collection, Hong Kong Arts Centre, Hong Kong (2012); China: Memories & Imagination, Albemarle Gallery, London (2011); Dimplom-Arbeiten Dortmund Photography Exhibition, Germany (2006).


All images courtesy the artist and Magician Space



West Bund Art & Design Fair | Artist: Shi Guowei

2017-11-02 17:37



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