song yige, curated by zeng fanzhi

SONG YIGECurated by Zeng Fanzhi

SONG YIGE

27 JANUARY – 27 FEBRUARY

SONG YIGECurated by Zeng Fanzhi

Marlborough Fine Art 6 Albemarle Street London W1S 4BY

+44 (0)20 7629 5161 mfa@marlboroughfineart.com www.marlboroughlondon.com

Song Yige’s paintings demonstrate many details from daily life, such as the buckets and bath taps. However, she can always take these elements of everyday life out of the ordinary.

I first met her in 2008, and immediately recognised her talent and encouraged her to produce her first solo exhibition. Since then, she has continually improved, her painting has become better and better, her confidence has become stronger and stronger, and one can witness her growth through the development of her work.

INTRODUCTIONby Zeng Fanzhi

MEMORY FOR THE FUTURE

Inflected with contradiction and black

humour, Song Yige’s paintings are always

enigmatic and often disquieting. She

paints common objects that look familiar

but also out-of-place, and scenes that

are rich with sensibility but impoverished

of narrative sense. Oddness is persistent

and inescapable, motivated by incongruity

between object, context and atmosphere.

In these imagined, intangible places, small

amounts of brightly coloured paint are

found dripping down steps, smeared on

the floor, or splattered on walls. These

are continual reminders that painting

is a territory where fact and fantasy

mingle and play.

Pictures “automatically jump out

of my mind,” Song says. “Like memories,

they are just some sort of abstract extract

and purification of real life too.” She has

an accomplished painting technique,

and though the oil paint is mixed thinly

and applied lightly the finish is confident,

fluent and sumptuous. Lighter hues are

often so amplified by dark surroundings

that the paintings seem illuminated from

within, encouraging the sense that they

are windows onto alternative worlds.

Song believes she was always going

to become a painter. As a child growing

There are few signs of celebration or dancing in Song Yige’s Dance Party. Its six attendees stand in a row; arms linked so there are no gaps between them. Alternating heights suggest that they are couples, but they hold six balloons that obscure their faces with comical accuracy, and they all wear long, dressing-gown-like robes, which make their figures illegible. Even the background is stark; the figures stand against a flat tricolour of greys. The atmosphere is not unwelcoming, however, it is intriguing.

up in Harbin, a large industrial city in

northern China, she would forgo sweets

for watercolour brushes and drawing

paper. Now in her mid-thirties, the way

in which a child sees the world continues

to influence and inform her work. She

has spoken of the roads in Harbin once

seeming wide and empty when she was

young, but narrow when she returned as

an adult. Her paintings often express the

sense of seeing something without the

framework that experience provides.

Painting an object freed from its

typical environment emphasises the

disparity between what is seen and

how it is interpreted, she thinks. “Every

substance has its unique nature, different

state of presence, colours, shapes, forms,

which people envision differently…”

she says. “I am just trying to amplify

this simple, essential fact, by creating

a context where regular objects are in

non-normal circumstances.”

Song cites Francis Bacon and

Renaissance painting as the two main

influences on her art; an answer that

suggests how important the actual

practice of painting – pleasure in the

activity, as well as the philosophical

questions it raises – is to the work itself.

Her Hands, 2015, 96 x 97 cm

Olympia, 2014, 154 x 138 cm

Lily Le Brun

There are obvious references to be found

in her motifs – the bashed-about Greek

sculptures in Encounter and Twins, for

example, or Her Hands, which echoes the

cool simplicity of Durer’s Praying Hands,

its delight in drapery, and the green-

blue of antique drawing paper. There is

subtler evidence in the paintings’ formal

qualities – the positioning of forms within

space, and the restrained, close tones

on the palette.

Francis Bacon spoke of using

the motif of the Crucifixion as an

“armature” on which to hang “feelings

about behaviour and the way life is”,

and suggested that depicting it was

tantamount to painting a self-portrait.

The recognisable forms in a painting

are not necessarily its subject, Bacon is

saying, and every painting of Song Yige’s

reflects the same conviction. Like Bacon,

Song battles against illustration and

narrative. In her depiction of people,

identifying characteristics are obscured –

balloons cover faces, heads are painted

from behind, costumes dress bodies –

so that gut sensation receives minimal

interference. Rather than presenting

a conclusion, the motif triggers

associations and dislodges memories.

The figure does not even have to be

there. In Olympia, for example, the solitary

white feather resting on a chaise longue

suggests absence rather than emptiness.

The mind is left to add Manet’s model.

Song moved to Beijing in 2008

after graduating from Luxun Academy of

Fine Arts in northeast China. Although

she has never lived outside of China,

her attention to the inner sensations of

individuals is more typical of Western

thought, and there are barely any visual

references in her work that are specific to

Eastern culture. Song’s paintings are also

a contrast to many other artists of her

generation who have turned to cartoons

and kitsch for their imagery, or use art

as vehicles of political ideas.

But Song’s works are not

disengaged from contemporary issues;

they reflect experience of living in the

modern world, everyday sights, objects

and feelings. The unassuming grey that

seeps into every picture also pervades

urban landscapes like Harbin and Beijing;

it is the colour of large roads and wide

pavements, glass-clad skyscrapers,

enveloping, noxious smog. Its presence in

Song’s work dominates enough to recall

Gerhard Richter’s assessment that grey

“has the capacity that no other colour has,

to make ‘nothing’ visible”, and that it is

“the ideal colour for indifference, fence-

sitting, keeping quiet, despair. In other

words, for states of being and situations

that affect one, and for which one would

like to find a visual expression.”

Unfamiliarity with a large city can be

an infantilising experience, one akin to the

“context where regular objects are in non-

normal circumstances” that Song describes

contriving. Again and again her paintings

express a palpable sense of solitude and

isolation. But, like the curiously welcoming

Dance Party, they are not accompanied by

despondence – the strength of her painting

technique, the vivid colours and the traces

of humour preclude this. Song is aware that

disorientation also heightens a sense of

wonder and of potential, “memory for the

future”, as she phrases it.

In one painting, 43 matchsticks form

a crowd that loosely resembles the shape

of a heart. They stand separate from one

another and upright, each casting a discreet

shadow. Some are starting to topple,

threatening the unity of the group. Bright,

jewel-coloured heads distinguish them from

the grey background. They are a reminder

of hidden energy, waiting to be discovered.

Dance Party, 2015, 180 x 203 cm

1. Green, 2010 80 x 100 cm

2. Encounter, 2012 159 x 152 cm

3. Reborn, 2013 80 x 60 cm

4. Together, 2013 60 x 100 cm

5. Peach Tree, 2013 155 x 154 cm Private Collection

6. Diamond Miner, 2014 147 x 110 cm

7. Waiting, 2014 153 x 120 cm

8. Male Star, 2014 53 x 43.5 cm

9. Movie Queen, 2014 60 x 50 cm

10. Olympia, 2014 154 x 138 cm Private Collection

11. Life Journey, 2014 155 x 110 cm Private Collection

12. Bread, 2014 103 x 98 cm Private Collection

LIST OF WORKS

13. After the Feast, 2015 137 x 89.5 cm

14. Backyard Garden, 2015 170 x 205 cm

15. Three Turtles, 2015 30 x 30.5 cm

16. Twins, 2015 173.7 x 199 cm

17. Thinker, 2015 202 x 248 cm

18. Man with Red Head, 2015 50 x 40 cm

19. The 171st Bone of the Mammoth, 2015 61 x 91 cm

20. Two Baby Leopards, 2015 177 x 152 cm

21. Beginning of Success, 2015 137 x 136 cm

22. Dance Party, 2015 180 x 203 cm

23. Platonic Honeymoon, 2015 141 x 160 cm

24. 43 Matches, 2015 128 x 161.5 cm

25. Line and Circle, 2015 152 x 119 cm

26. Her Hands, 2015 96 x 97 cm

1. Green, 2010 80 x 100 cm

2. Encounter, 2012 159 x 152 cm

3. Reborn, 2013 80 x 60 cm

4. Together, 2013 60 x 100 cm

5. Peach Tree, 2013 155 x 154 cm

6. Diamond Miner, 2014 147 x 110 cm

7. Waiting, 2014 153 x 120 cm

8. Male Star, 2014 53 x 43.5 cm

9. Movie Queen, 2014 60 x 50 cm

10. Olympia, 2014 154 x 138 cm

11. Life Journey, 2014 155 x 110 cm

12. Bread, 2014 103 x 98 cm

13. After the Feast, 2015 137 x 89.5 cm

14. Backyard Garden, 2015 170 x 205 cm

15. Three Turtles, 2015 30 x 30.5 cm

16. Twins, 2015 173.7 x 199 cm

17. Thinker, 2015 202 x 248 cm

18. Man with Red Head, 2015 50 x 40 cm

19. The 171st Bone of the Mammoth, 2015 61 x 91 cm

20. Two Baby Leopards, 2015 177 x 152 cm

21. Beginning of Success, 2015 137 x 136 cm

22. Dance Party, 2015 180 x 203 cm

23. Platonic Honeymoon, 2015 141 x 160 cm

24. 43 Matches, 2015 128 x 161.5 cm

25. Line and Circle, 2015 152 x 119 cm

26. Her Hands, 2015 96 x 97 cm

BIOGRAPHY

1980 Born in Harbin, Hei Longjiang Province, China

2007 Graduated with Masters Degree as a Post Graduate Course from Lu Xun Fine Arts Institute Oil Painting Department Third Studio

Works and lives in Beijing

SOLO EXHIBITIONS2014 “ SONG YIGE: Another Dimension”

Sotheby’s Gallery, Hong Kong

2011 “ SONG Yige”, HanArt gallery,  Hong Kong

2010 “ Song Yige”, Hyundai Gallery, Seoul, Korea

2010 “Yi Ge”, ARTMIA Gallery, Beijing

GROUP EXHIBITIONS2015 “ I AM BECAUSE OF YOU”,

YUANSPACE, Beijing

2013 Opening Exhibition, Zhong Gallery, Beijing

2013 “@WHAT”, ARKO, Seoul, Korea

2011 “ ARTMIA Living”, ARTMIA Gallery, Beijing

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Design: Shine Design, London Print: Impress Print Services

Catalogue No.:652 ISBN: 978-1-909707-25-2 © 2016 Marlborough

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