Yan Bing: Odyssey

Start Museum Preparatory Team will present the eleventh exhibition of Genealogy Study of Artists Yan Bing: ODYSSEY at SSSSTART on 2022 July 14th.

The things and people of the Northwest China, covered with traces of the sun and moon, have their own unique souls. Born and raised there, Yan Bing's works are inevitably tainted with the scent of the earth. Since his graduation in 2007, the artistic language of Yan Bing has accumulated and evolved over time, layer upon layer, while his gaze behind the paintings has internalised into a more sacred and compassionate perception. The title of the exhibition "ODYSSEY" is better known as a reference to Kubrick's film 2001: A Space Odyssey made in 1968, a fatalistic and philosophical exploration of the ultimate destiny of mankind. Yan Bing's works are based on his background, personal encounters and feelings. He then leaves his pristine thoughts on a two-dimensional canvas with classical shapes and a tranquil expression of colour. He wanders between the inside and the outside of the body, the self and the other, the past and the future, revealing a pure solicitude - a search for a monumental spiritual home that has long been buried in the human heart. In his works, he has completed the transformation of "leaving home - returning home - starting again" under the tone of the earth, revealing a scenery and sculpture-like appearance.

In this exhibition, Start Museum will take artist's early oil paintings and installations in the collection as an introduction, linking a number of his new paintings to a multi-targeted discussion on the evolution of form, colour, object, emotion and thought in Yan Bing's artistic practice over the past 15 years.

Photograph from Start Museum, Shanghai