Richard Saltoun Gallery is delighted to present "Metempsychosis," an online exhibition featuring the works of Chinese-born artist Qian Qian. Encompassing a series of watercolours on paper created in 2022, the exhibition converges the artist's interest in the axis of science, mythology, and spirituality.
The title "Metempsychosis” refers to the philosophical concept of reincarnation in ancient Greek thought - a theme reverberating through diverse vernacular mythologies. In Chinese culture, cicadas embody the emblematic symbol of reincarnation, lending their name to the artist's original poem specially written for this exhibition. The integral role of ancestral rituals in Chinese culture and her personal upbringing further inform Qian Qian’s interest in this theme.
Within the series, each artwork acts as a portal to alternate universes, where ethereal figures seamlessly oscillate between abstract and figurative realms, unfolding against celestial backdrops. Qian Qian starts with creating the backgrounds, applying and manipulating watercolour by uniquely using salt in certain areas, blending chaos with control. Subsequently, her precisely rendered pencil strokes introduce various figurative elements into the composition. By deftly playing with perspective, the artist transports viewers beyond the confines of outer space, or into the intricate recesses of the human body, showcasing a symbiotic interplay between fluid organisms coexisting and intertwined.
The artist's deep-rooted interest in the pre-Renaissance entanglements of science and mythology are a primary influence for her visual vocabulary. Quantum physics and quantum consciousness, string theory, and the fundamental concept that all thought and matter is vibration inspire the forms appearing in "Zeta Decay"," "Duet," and "Pulsation", which resemble vibrating, charged particles.
In the work titled "Echo," one of the first pieces created in the series, the artist explores the Greek mythological tale of Echo, a female protagonist cursed by a Goddess to transform into pure sound. "Transmigration of a Soul" depicts a hybrid Buddha figure composed of human limbs, wings, and shells. The figures portrayed in these works undergo a continuous metamorphosis, transitioning from fixed forms and matter into energy, vibration or information. Reflecting the exhibition’s central concept of reincarnation, Qian Qian's vision encapsulates the cycle of transformation from non-sentience to sentience, from the "dead" to animate matter. The state of perpetual flux is visually reinforced by concentric, centrifugal lines appearing throughout the paintings, as showcased in the work "Traveller."
The recurrently appearing cracks in the artworks, such as in ‘Traveller’ and ‘Transmigration of a Soul’, symbolize the intrusion of the external world into the internal domain, where organic and chaotic life finds its way through the crevices, infiltrating the realm of artificial, man-made constructs. The artist drew inspiration from the cracks in her balcony walls, where natural micro-ecosystems have tenaciously thrived. Organic motifs such as cells, bacteria, roots and plants harmoniously interact with ethereal humanoid figures and intelligent machines, exemplified in "Cindy in Red" and "Poppy," thus exploring the tension between the organic and artificial realms spurred by the rising ideology of techno-utopianism and AI.
"Metempsychosis" presents an enthralling constellation of fluid, dreamlike worlds, wherein characters and motifs from mythology, science, nature, and spirituality converge and interact in perfect symbiosis.
Cicada song
A legend tells of an ancient miracle,
That settled like dust across the Earth.
I hurried to meet it
and scuttled across melting roads,
trampled the gnarled forests, burst calluses
on the mountain crags.
From this day to the next they whispered
that this is life.
When the nights held us,
I clung to the soothing breeze up to
The twinkling sycamores.
We perched there together and told tales
About the other side of here,
Where our ancestors are waiting,
Calling our names.
We smelt the lilies drifting tiredly towards
Into the night.
People would always be busying themselves.
Digging for fist-sized stars that had grown
From the dust. With a rub and a breathe or few
The dirt would fall away,
And you could catch it shimmering.
Pieces cast into the thick thorny scrubs
Flickered into every tiny eye a world.
I once whispered an ancient legend to the moon
For its bedtime story.
It seems so long ago now that I feel
Warm and gooey with the memory on my tongue, my eyes swell with sweetness.
And I remember how, like honey dribbling down the pot, my words spilled
And I spoke and spoke and didn’t know she had fallen sound asleep,
And it was only when I had finished
Did I discover the silence of the fields around us.
And the dream had hatched.
When I gaze on my reflection
The end of me is attached like kite strings.
Primordial energy blows us and lingers
Along the white thread,
Its scent like wildflowers after rain.
I heard them saying that to find it,
This is the way you go,
Behind the wind and rain,
Amongst the silence of the fields.
Translated by Qian Qian and anonymous L
Embracing mankind in a phenomenological sense, Qian Qian’s work awakens the (human) spirits through constructed situations and empathized material. Relations are automatically generated where there are humans and as a type of psychological acknowledgement, spiritual being can be created therefrom. The assembled space, cosmopolitan, cities, local library, exhibition space or the Internet, provides a context where relations can be guided and reformed. Her medium varies from social practice, interactive installation to painting.
Qian Qian (b.1990, China), graduated in 2018 from MFA Fine Art in Goldsmiths, University of London. Her past exhibitions include: Mother Art Prize group exhibition, Zabludowicz Collection, London (2023), Embryos, solo exhibition in West Norwood Project Space, London (2020); Syncopes, Mimosa House (2021); FBA Futures, Mall Galleries, London (2019); Lodger, Westminster Library, London(2017); ...And To Dust All Return, Unna Way, Huddersfield (2016). She is the recipient of the 2023 Mother Art Prize Online Award and was shortlisted for FBA Futures in 2019. Qian Qian now lives and works in London.
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