Shen Ling

signed in Pinyin and dated 1991.6, framed

Acquired directly from the artist

Study of Art, April 1993, Central Academy of Fine Art No. 13, Hebei Education Press, China, p. 55
Shen Ling: Eroticism and Love, Timezone 8, Hong Kong, China, 2008, pp. 60-61

This work is generally in good condition. Scattered craquelures are found on impasto on the surface, which are consistent with the age of the work. Please note that it was not examined under ultraviolet light.
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Miss White Draws Miss Black
Shen Ling

Shen Ling’s renown extends as far back as the year 1988, notable for when she held a joint exhibition with her husband, Wang Yuping, at the National Art Museum of China. In 1991, along with her classmates, artists such as Liu Xiaodong and Yu Hong, she participated in an exhibition entitled “New Generation Art”, held at the then History Museum of China. Critics are often accustomed to classifying Shen Ling as one of the key artists of the “New Generation Art” movement, but her works are more complexed than this title may suggest. Perhaps because of the significantly radical style engendered in her, thanks to a training at the Central Academy of Fine Arts—and in particular the training of modern art in studio number four, along with peers Liu Xiaodong and Yu Hong—Shen’s expressionist works are of a much more intense vibrancy, thus creating a distinct tension that is characteristic of her creations.

When she graduated from the Academy in 1989, Shen Ling explored and developed her personal style via the avenue of realism. As with many other “New Generation Art” artists, she selected themes that were never far from her own life, using characters such as hairdressers in salons, female models, young girls, lovers. Even the locales of the paintings were securely sheltered by the familiar, by regularly frequented public and private spaces: in a studio, a hair salon, indoors. But what distinguishes Shen Ling from other artists of the epoch, is the dialogue present in her paintings. In both her 1991 piece Miss White Draws Miss Black, and her 1997 piece Purple, the artist stuns us with her striking use of extensive brush strokes. Miss White Draws Miss Black (Lot 721) is a typical interior studio scene, executed in the gray hues that are representative of the period immediately after Shen’s graduation. In spite of this monochromatic composition, Shen Ling’s subtle colour changes reveal a strong command over brush control and coordination, and though this initial stage of her artistic exploration is brimming with extensively coarse strokes, there is an inherent order to the piece. In 1997 Purple (Lot 722), the strokes erupt into chaos and disorder, and a more free and uninhibited use of colour surges from the work. Though these two works are born of the same vein, they represent the shift that Shen’s work underwent in the nineties, where muted, harmonious tones transformed into pulsating colours.

As can be seen, Shen Ling is confident in her compositional skills. These two works are structured and guided purely by the brushstrokes, exuding a certain sense of improvisation, fluidity. Unlike many other realist painters who rely on photographic technology, the artist said, “I never draft my paintings, nor will I ever enlarge small drafts to use as guides. I rely a lot on sketching and dictating; on observing life; on perceiving life. And through these methods I transform the ambiguous feelings I observe into distinct visual symbols, as if it all were my daily mood diary.”¹ In fact, even in Shen Ling’s more recent exhibits, one is still able to see that she has always remained scrupulous in accumulating sketches.

These features, which are intricately woven into the web of Shen Ling’s creations of the nineties, are unburdened by the weight of history shouldered by the previous generation. Under Shen’s brush, the day-to-day narrative of life contrasts starkly with the grandness from the eighties. The strong expressionist colours of her works juxtapose frankly with the rigid rules of realism inculcated by the Academy, like Yu Hong, Shen Ling enjoys depicting women—strangers in the city, girlfriends, as well as herself, and precisely because of this, some critics have donned Shen’s works with the label “Feminist”. But for Shen Ling, her inclination towards the female form stems from an appreciation of their inherent natural charm, not from an attention to an ornate, resplendent notion of beauty. As one can see in Purple, the variegated hues make the women appear somewhat eccentric, odd almost, and even reminiscent, perhaps, of Henri Matisse’s Portrait of Madame Matisse, so utterly unaware they both are of the viewer’s gaze. Shen Ling’s paintings unearth a more realistic, intrinsic, and vivacious aspect of women that the male brush, so often is it in pursuit of a pleasing, flattering image of the feminine form, eludes—Through this, her works render women with an unparalleled profundity. Just as described by the critic Yi Ying, “If we say that the love Yu Hong shows for life is subtle and introverted, we can say that Shen Ling’s love is sultry and deeply romantic. Like a pleasant novelist, she inadvertently breathes humour into the daily mundaneness of life.”²

1 Shen Ling, Moved by the Colour of Love: Shen Ling: 2004, Zhejiang People’s Fine Arts Publishing House, 2004

2 Yi Ying, Private Ways, Public Outlooks, Erotica and Love: Shen Ling Painting Series, Timezone 8 Ltd, 2008