Liu Wei - 20th Century & Contemporary Art & Design Evening Sale Hong Kong Saturday, November 26, 2016 | Phillips

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  • Provenance

    Grace Li Gallery, Zurich
    Acquired from the above by the present owner

  • Exhibited

    Zurich, Grace Li Gallery, Purple Air: New Works by Liu Wei, June 10 - August 10, 2006

  • Catalogue Essay

    “The computer is like a big brain that is constantly thinking, and I am only organizing … But its method of thinking is totally different from mine. It is just pure logic into color.” –Liu Wei

    Liu Wei is one of China’s leading contemporary artists, who, for the past 15 years, he has worked in many different styles and media ranging from sculpture, painting, installation and photography. As part of a generation in China that grew up during a period of rapid change and urbanization, he frequently looked to his surroundings for inspiration which he discovered in found objects and architectural constructions, to express his views of a changing material landscape comprised of decay, demolition and construction. He would break away from other artists around him who were subversively referencing politics to focus on expressing a freer art form without boundaries.

    At the early age of 15, while studying painting at the China Academy of Art in Hangzhou, he would learn that technique was not necessarily important. Purple Air 6 is an iconic example of his early painting where he chose to transform and re-explore Chinese landscape painting. His hallmark geometric forms of horizontal and vertical lines in the foreground take the form of a monumental shape suggestive of craggy mountain partially obscured by the protruding branch of a pine tree, whereas the shapes in the background resemble a modern sprawling cityscape - all in a manner that references traditional Chinese landscape painting. Liu’s paintings are in fact not made with a brush but digitally rendered on a computer which is then painted onto a larger canvas by his assistants. A landscape made up of this geometric scheme is the artists’ own unique way of self-expression. He tries to find a personal sense of order within the turbulent disorder of contemporary landscape.

    His works have been included in major museum exhibitions and collections around the world and he is represented by international galleries in New York, London, Paris, Hong Kong and Beijing.

Property of an Important American Collector

18

Purple Air 6

2006
signed and dated 'Liu Wei [in Chinese and English] 2006' on the reverse
oil on canvas
249.8 x 149.9 cm. (98 3/8 x 59 in.)
Painted in 2006.

Estimate
HK$1,900,000 - 2,800,000 
€229,000-337,000
$244,000-359,000

Sold for HK$2,000,000

Contact Specialist
Jonathan Crockett
Deputy Chairman, Asia and Head of 20th Century & Contemporary Art, Asia
+852 2318 2023

Sandy Ma
Specialist, Head of Evening Sale
+852 2318 2025

General Enquiries
+852 2318 2000

20th Century & Contemporary Art & Design Evening Sale

Hong Kong Auction 27 November 2016