Song Kun

(i) (ii) (iii) signed in Pinyin and Chinese, titled in Chinese and English, dated 2008 on the reverse, framed
(iv) (v) signed in Pinyin and Chinese, titled in Chinese and English, dated 2009 on the reverse, framed

Private Collection, China

USA, Los Angeles, Walter Maciel Gallery, Song Kun - Seeking the Recluse but Not Meeting, 12 September - 31 October, 2009, p. 17, 19, 21, 23, 47

These works are generally in good condition. Please note that they were not examined under ultraviolet light and out of their frames.
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When one thinks of the spectre of reclusion that frequently colours Song Kun's paintings, or the mood which accompanies the escape of one's alienation from reality, the painting Man on the Road in Sichuan (Lot 4) often comes to mind – the image of a man, exhausted and asleep against a car window, on the road home. "Going home" is not only the narrative of this work, but a thread that connects all of the paintings from this period of Song's career. Whether it's the Irish girl drinking on a New York street, the youth perplexed by an illusory metropolis, or the image of a homeland whose vitality has been extinguished, Song is persistent in her deep exploration of the questions of individual human existence and the concept of returning home.

Critic Pi Li, summing up Song's paintings from this period, once said, "The paintings are frozen, dark, still, appearing as a crisscross in space and time, the human figures varying in ethnicity, status, gender. Yet all of this reflects the artist's individual and internal self-examination and transformation. The search of the subconscious and the reality of living in a secular world intersect, giving birth to something rich and complicated, which then generates the very poetry and tension in her works. Through her stream-of-consciousness narrative style, we sense her antipathy towards the alienating effects of blind capitalism as well as her reverence for traditional Chinese and local culture."[1]

[1]Seeking the Recluse but not Meeting, Kelley & Shang Art Consulting and Walter Maciel Gallery, 2009, p. 51