CURRENT EXHIBITION :  

MAY 2 - 31, LI LIN LEE
opening reception: Fri. May 2 , 5-8pm

Walsh Gallery presents Urban Archaeology, a solo exhibition of the paintings of Li Lin Lee. Lee's most recent series of works involve a process of painterly archaeology of the surface in which canvases are built up with layers of paint and then stripped down again. The exhibition opens Friday, May 2 from 5-8 pm at Walsh Gallery. The artist will be present at the opening reception.

Li Lin Lee's newest series of work, he uses familiar shapes and designs influenced by graphics, maps, and corporate insignia to create paintings that play with the meanings communicated by simple abstract forms. Lee was intrigued by the idea that as our society develops, our graphic designs simplify. Although these paintings are a response to a deeply personal experience of moving through time and space in Chicago, these works have the same weight as symbols created by ancient cultures. These are spiritual works whose colors traverse a neutral zone between then and now. Lee has transformed the ordinary into the mythological.

Li Lin Lee has appeared in publications of both the National Gallery (Washington, D.C.) and the Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Art (Taipei). His works appear in the collections of Citibank, Inc., Philips Morris Management Corporation, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the National Gallery of Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the U.S. State Department. Li Lin Lee currently lives and works in Chicago, Illinois.

 

 

MAY 2 - 31, 2008, QUI JUN - Curated By Jason Waite
Opening reception: Fri. May 2 , 5-8pm

Beautiful Cake takes us on a journey through the media saturated environment, playfully transforming political and cultural symbols into the fantastical and erotic. This absorption of different cultural elements has become the status quo in the 'new china' with a pervasive desire to become a member of the global community. Born after the Cultural Revolution, a period of intense introversion and introspection, the artist is engulfed in the "extending diameter of the explosion of information" that is available on the internet. The result of this vast quantity of information that arrives ever more rapidly is the further cementing of the receptor, to stay informed one must constantly be entrenched in the milieu of breaking reports and urgent updates. Beautiful Cake shows an alternative possibility, a creative engagement with contemporary events, an activation of information based on a profound lightness with undertones of satire. 

Quoting a Chinese proverb "something bitter is beneficial and good for the body and soul", Qiu Jun enjoys the sweetness of the cake though realizes it is at times too sweet. This polemical edge that circumscribes the condensed work intersects the apparent humor to merge these opposites in a delicate union.  Ultimately, as with any good dessert Beautiful Cake lingers in the palette and leaves us wanting more.

Qiu Jun born in 1976, lives and works in Guangzhou. He received a Masters Degree in Multimedia Art from South China Normal University in Guangzhou in 2005. He has been included a number of exhibitions in China and abroad including the Foundation 3.14, Bergen, Norway; OCT art space, Shenzhen; He Xiangning Art Museum, Shenzhen; and the Guangdong Art Museum. Recently Qiu Jun has been invited to participate in artist residencies at the Flabbfabrikken Center, Norway and Cittadelarte – Michelangelo Pistoletto Foundation, Italy.