The exhibition “What On Earth” – Paintings by Lion Nie & Liu Maonian will grandly open on April 5, 2024, at the Vancouver Collection Space Art Gallery. The exhibition is hosted by the Vancouver Collection Space and organized by the Vancouver Collection Art, with Wu Tiehan serving as the curator.
Nie Jijun/Lion Nie, born in the 1970s, is an independent artist and curator. He resides in Beijing/Vancouver and is the director of the Beijing Hanjian Art Museum. Since childhood, he has had a passion for painting and photography and is a member of the China Construction Culture and Art Association. His works have been collected by numerous domestic and international corporate institutions and collectors. He studied art at Henan University and economics and management at Peking University. He is a member of the International and New York Photography Society. With 25 years of experience in brand planning and creative work and art collection, he was named one of China’s top ten brand planning experts in 2002 and published the personal painting collection “Relationships” in 2022.
Liu Maoning, born in 1965 in Huangling County, Shanxi Province, graduated from Xi’an Academy of Fine Arts in 1988 and was assigned to teach at Yan’an University the same year. He has been living in Beijing since 2007. From 2007 to 2023, he participated in more than twenty domestic and international group exhibitions.
Curator Wu Tiehan believes that the two artists attempt to answer questions about the ontology of life through their respective abstract painting languages. The famous philosopher Heidegger once proposed, “Solving the problem of existence should start with the existence of the being who has the problem of existence.” It is reasonable for artists to look at everything from the perspective of human beings. They use different artistic methods to express their inner cognition. It is better to say that the two artists, through their own choices, establish a relationship with existence and explore and comprehend the characteristics of human life.
Mr. Nie’s paintings explore the concept of overlaying in existence, emphasizing the complexity of life and the layered relationship of history. His works integrate the associations of society, history, and life and present ordered existence in a chaotic state through carefully crafted colours, lines, and compositions. The works reflect profound reflections on the associations of life and demonstrate the artist’s unique insights and exploration of the meaning of existence. Mr. Liu’s unique artistic concept views “controversy” as the core of the work. He believes that resolving the “controversy” on the canvas is equivalent to resolving personal cognitive contradictions requiring rational and complex thinking. He emphasizes the need to balance retention and elimination, rationality, and sensibility in the works. He uses food-grade paper and historical materials to express the “controversies” of different periods, expanding visual imagination. He believes mature artists should contemplate internal issues and present transcendent results through vision.
Viewing the abstract paintings of Mr. Nie and Mr. Liu, one can see that both possess highly creative thinking. They present the truth with sincerity, no longer confined to correspondence but allowing existence to reveal its original appearance through the artist as a person, making the world no longer live in confusion. They each seek and explore the boundaries of artistic existence in their contexts and inspire more people to think through their painting languages.