Wang Guangle

Wang Guangle (Chinese name: 王光乐) (b. 1976 in Songxi, Fujian Province, Southeastern China) is a contemporary Chinese artist.

Education and N12

While still a high school student, Wang was accepted into the Affiliated High School of the Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA) (中央美术学院) in Beijing . He later studied in the Oil Painting Department at CAFA, earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts in oil painting in 2000. The artist showed early promise while at CAFA with his painting "3 to 5pm" (2000), which earned him first prize in the academy's annual exhibition contest. ..

When still a high school student at the high school attached to CAFA, Wang met artists Qiu Xiaofei, Song Kun, Hu Xiaoyuan and Wen Ling. Wang remained close to these artists while at the Academy and—along with several artists at CAFA—formed the art group known as N12 in 2000. The group did not set out any formal manifestos but held annual group exhibitions up until 2007. Most of the members of the group are still active as artists and remain based in the Beijing area.

Terrazzo and "Coffin Paint" series

Wang Guangle had begun as a figurative painter but by the time he graduated, he had already started a shift toward abstract art. While a student at CAFA, he was painting slivers of light that had fallen on the floor of the studio. By 2002, he began focusing exclusively on painting the terrazzo floor of his studio. .. Since terrazzo is still a ubiquitous building material in China, many Chinese viewers see the paintings as an object of nostalgia. Many Western critics tend to see the Terrazzo paintings as examples of abstract minimalism. In 2004, the artist spent three months making "The Wall", in which he painted terrazzo patterns on the wall of a building slated for demolition. Writing about the work, German art critic Ulrike Munter compared Wang's emphasis on process over result to Buddhist sand mandalas, "blown away by the wind as soon as they are finished". .. In 2005, Wang Guangle had his first solo show at Onemoon Gallery in Beijing.

Wang's latest series is inspired a tradition in his native Fujian province where elders paint one layer of the lid of their coffin each year until they die .. While the artist had applied meticulous, light layers of paint for his Terrazzo series, the Coffin Paint series often featured thick painting surfaces as the artist would apply up to sixty overlapping stripes on a single canvass. Wang Guangle held a solo show of mostly works from the Coffin Paint series at Beijing Commune in 2009.

External links

• The official site for the artist group N12
• Stacey Duff on Wang Guangle in Time Out Beijing
• Wang Guangle at Onemoon Gallery
• Wang Guangle at Beijing Commune
• Commentary on the artist by German art critic Ulrike Munter
• Lee Ambrozy on Wang Guangle at Sinopop