HONG KONG – 24 June 2024 – PhillipsX, a selling exhibition platform operated by the global Private Sales team at Phillips, and WHITE SPACE, one of the foremost pioneering spaces for art in China, are pleased to announce AWAKENED by nature, a selling exhibition opens to the public from 11 July to 16 August at Phillips’ galleries in Hong Kong’s West Kowloon Cultural District. The exhibition will feature two leading Chinese female artists, Li Shurui and Shi Zhiying, who are invited to create works in which they are taking their inspirations from nature, light, and colour. Founded in 2004 in Beijing, WHITE SPACE has successfully launched the careers of numerous emerging artists over the past two decades, bringing their work to leading art fairs and institutions internationally. Curated by WHITE SPACE, this exhibition also marks Phillips’ first selling exhibition in partnership with a major gallery at its spectacular West Kowloon headquarters.
Wenjia Zhang, Private Sales Director, Asian Clients, Phillips said, “Phillips has been presenting a rich diversity of female artists from the global contemporary art scene in our auctions and exhibitions. To further our legacy as a bellwether of young female talent, we are honoured to work with WHITE SPACE to bring incredible artworks by two leading young female artists on the contemporary art scene in mainland China to our community in Hong Kong and internationally. Work by Li Shurui and Shi Zhiying have been exhibited at multiple solo shows and group exhibitions in distinguished international galleries and museums, AWAKENED by nature represents a unique opportunity for our community of collectors and art lovers to join the dialogue between their imagination of nature, humanity and the environment.”
Di Zhang, Gallery Director, WHITE SPACE, said, “We are very pleased to partner with Phillips to present AWAKENED by nature. We look forward to this partnership, which is a great opportunity to further engage with the art community in Mainland China, Hong Kong and beyond.”
Initially inspired by LED light displays, which are an integral part of the modern Chinese cityscape, Li Shurui’s interest in light stems from her personal observations of Chongqing’s nightscape. First photographing random low-quality digital images of Chongqing nightclub LED lights with her mobile phone, Li recreates colour and spatial effects with an airbrush on canvas. The sense of space between the points of colour is achieved through varying the brightness, purity of hue, and the relative clarity/blurriness of the marginal lines. Examples of her best-known gradient works gridded points against a background of shifting colors, which strips the core of visuality to the human retina/optic nerve, such as Crack in the Wind and May presented in the exhibition. A symbol of spring and new life, Springtime After the Pandemic No.2 (illustrated page 1) highlighted here not only reinterprets Li’s signature usage of light and colour to adopt to new social circumstances, but also shapes individuals’ needs and spirituality in different cultures and times.
Drawing inspiration from both Eastern and Western art history, Shi Zhiying captures the life-movement, materiality, and ephemerality of oriental spirits through the language of Western oil painting, utilising colour, texture, and brushstrokes. Religious figures and animals with deep spiritual/cultural connotations are Shi’s most recent creations, such as Auspicious Animal No. 5, Goddess of Music No. 4, and Little Elephant presented in the exhibition that were created over the last year. Auspicious Animal No. 5 (illustrated page 1) highlighted here features a precious blue gem, which was a central subject matter of the artist’s solo show at WHITE SPACE in 2022. Set besides the smooth yet textural auspicious animal, the temporal nature of both creations are reflected as they dissolve into each other, capturing the continuous transformations that occur between matter, the picture plane and the state of perception.