The China Project

181 Three Decades: The Contemporary Chinese Collection WANG Zhiyuan Wang Zhiyuan is one of a group of Chinese–Australian artists who has drawn on the complex experience of migration and encounters with a new language and culture, fundamentally influencing the direction of his art. Born in Tianjin in 1958, Wang studied printmaking at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing before migrating to Australia in 1989. Throughout his career Wang has explored sexual themes citing Chinese erotica from the Ming and Qing dynasties as inspiration. In Fragments 2000, the experience of alienation Wang encountered with a new language is of central importance. The basis for the work is a group of seemingly arbitrary objects that have been individually carved from MDF board. Comprised of 40 wall-based sculptures suspended in relief, the installation juxtaposes everyday objects such as handsaws, mosquito coils, scissors and a sweater with traditional Taoist symbols, including a stylised cloud, lotus and peony. These radiant reliefs spill across the wall and onto the floor in a wave of floating imagery. By using the postmodern device of appropriation — in which iconic and recognisable emblems are used and repositioned to draw out other, more oblique relationships — Wang seeks to throw open the complex possibilities that capricious associations may enable. Wang’s intention was to create a work that expressed feelings of ‘originality, mystery and flux . . . inspired by objects close to me — trade-marks of industrial products, daily necessities, ancient religious photos, printing material for art works . . .’ 1 Just as a new language, at first encounter, appears impenetrable, Fragments draws together a group of disparate objects as a means of offering an alternative way of communication. The everyday objects in this work are painted in incandescent hues of pink, blue, yellow and green. These colours — also understood to be of particular significance for Chinese literati painting, in which they are associated with the power of the mythical — allow the viewer to re-address the context and meaning of these objects. Some of the sculptures have obvious connections to the symbolic iconography of Taoism, incorporating, for example, the peony flower (a symbol for prosperity and happiness) and the budding lotus (a symbol of purity and enlightenment traditionally closely aligned to Buddhism and the state of nirvana). When Wang Zhiyuan, with tongue in cheek, juxtaposes these venerated symbols with mundane items such as a pair of scissors, a coil of string, a paintbrush or a handkerchief, he heightens the disjuncture between them, which draws attention to itself, and opens up for reconsideration the meaning and attributed values of each. endnote 1 Wang Zhiyuan, Artist’s statement in Glacier [exhibition catalogue], RMIT Gallery, RMIT University, Melbourne, 2001, p.6. opposite and above Fragments (details) 2000 Synthetic polymer paint on MDF board / 40 components ranging from 31.1 x 37 x 0.5cm to 63.5 x 57 x 0.5cm; 600 x 600cm (installed, variable) / Purchased 2002. Queensland Art Gallery Foundation Grant