Connoisseur Contemporary and Connoisseur Art Gallery Tomorrow-Jan 31
They are all Sichuan Fine Arts Institute graduates born in the early 1980s and are touted as pioneering artists of contemporary China by their galleries. Chan Yu, Guo Hongwei, Li Shurui, Wan Yang and Zhou Siwei belong to the age group that 'grew up as a privileged generation with exposure to Western culture, technology, internet and, consumerism', says Sappho Ma of Connoisseur Contemporary and Connoisseur Art Gallery.
Tomorrow, the sister galleries on Hollywood Road will be showcasing - in their first show of the year - 17 acrylic and oil paintings by this quintet of twentysomething artists.
Curated by the Beijing-born Ma, who was also born in 1982, and Federico Keller, the exhibition is the continuation of the galleries' 82 Republic programme set up in 2006 to showcase the works of Chinese artists born in the 1980s.
'They enjoyed the undivided attention of their parents and might not appreciate the political turmoil their parents and predecessors had gone through; and their art reflects this - their preoccupation with their childhood fascinations, commercial and mass-produced products.'
For example, Guo's work 'reflects a philosophical view towards his own memories ... He uses old photographs from family albums, interprets them with his recollections of those times and reproduces these images on canvas,' says Ma.