Born and based in Shanghai, China, Fang Wei (b. 1968) completed his studies in Shanghai Arts & Crafts Institute. He is known for his dream-like paintings. Fang does not draw from a pre-existing repository of subjects and themes. Instead, he allows his imagination to run wild and manifest itself in his colorful palette, using vivid colors to express the depth and emotionality of the characters and scenes he portrays. He focuses on the essence of human nature; embracing the excitement, fear, loneliness, ecstasy and alienation that is an integral part of the human condition. Through his command of the absurd, he creates fantastical landscapes by employing surrealist techniques and a skillful application of vibrant swaths of paint.
The characters that Fang creates are of utmost importance. Men, women, statues or idols are transformed by the touch of his paintbrush. He seamlessly blends the colors that stain his canvas, fostering an atmosphere of chaos and ambiguity. His large-scale creations are dominated by multiple human forms that melt into the saturated landscape. These seemingly random forms are actually meticulously constructed - creations of a genius who uses paint to articulate what he sees in his mind’s eye. These busy paintings are overflowing with primitive mysticism, boasting an array of dizzying psychedelic hues that lull observers into a state of hypnosis.
The artist resolutely believes that subjective interior truths are often more accurate than objective reality. Drawing upon the notion that our perception of reality is an interaction between personal memory and external physical sensation, he invites us to contemplate the connection between people and the space that they occupy. As time passes, these tenuous connections will eventually strengthen, serving as a conduit for new possibilities. His sculptures are, hence, physical specimens that denote this process of becoming.
As an artist, Fang captures the rhythm of life in a unique visual language. He locates the figures that dominate his composition in the colorful wilderness, articulated by solid streams of bright color. His work takes on an almost hallucinogenic quality, as distorted forms seem to writhe on the surface of the canvas, translating an outpouring of nervous energy into a vital life force. Light and dark, reality and illusion, advancement and decline, life, and death, are just two sides of the same coin, ringing true of the immortal words of Gilles Deleuze, “When abjection becomes splendor, the horrors of life take on a quality of pure intensity and brilliance.”