Song Kun

each signed in Chinese and titled in Chinese and English and dated 2004 on the reverse

Private Collection, China

China, Shanghai, Minsheng Art Museum, Thirty Years of Contemporary Art Chinese Art 1979-2009, 18 April to 18 July 2010, p.523

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Song Kun was accepted into the Central Academy of Fine Arts after receiving distinction from her school. After graduation, she became a key member of the artist group N12. Her oeuvre usually reveals scenes from the lives of post-1970s generation. Her works mostly have been about soul-searching during drastic changes in society, the pursuit and preservation of spirituality in a material world and the purpose of life and conflicts of mind. In 2004, Song Kun was a Masters student in the Oil Painting Department at the Central Academy of Arts where she was greatly influenced by her tutor Liu Xiaodong. In the same year, she created three series: the social realist Born in Garbage, the marginalized people of The Third Sex, and the whimsical Jehad. These series were then followed by a series of biographical works in 2006. The subjects that appear in her works not only demonstrate her concern with humanity, they also mirror her own life. Song Kun has an ardent love for rock music and this comes through in her The Third Sex series. Many of these dispirited young people with their dyed hair and ear and tongue piercings  are in reality her friends. The loneliness of these youngsters comes alive from the canvas,  as if they are misplaced. Song Kun has a very distinct painting style. Her canvases exude a sense of transparency, almost like a watercolour.  Faces painted with soft and tranquil colours  glow subtly, as if they are a flash of memory, or a lost soul from one of Nan Goldin's photographs beautiful yet fragile. In 2010, the present set of paintings were included in the inaugural exhibition at Minsheng Art Museum's Thirty Years of Chinese Contemporary Art. They are without a doubt very important examples from her oeuvre.