Sandra Gering Inc. presents New Exhibit by Jennifer Wen Ma 5/11
By: A.A. Cristi May. 03, 2017
SANDRA GERING INC is pleased to present JENNIFER WEN MA: Eight Views of Paradise Interrupted.
Jennifer Wen Ma creates delicate, ephemeral installations out of paper, ink, glass and light, fusing aspects of Chinese and European art history with a distinctly contemporary approach. For this exhibition, the artist presents an environment of new works borrowing from the Chinese literati landscape painting trope of Eight Views of Xiaoxiang. This homage meditates on the mental landscape that yielded the artist's concept for the acclaimed installation opera Paradise Interrupted, exploring the utopian idea of 'paradise'. Originally presented at the Lincoln Center Festival last summer, the opera was the artist's directorial debut. It combined Ma's innovative set designs with her co-written libretto and a contemporary composition in the traditional kunqu vocal singing style with western operatic voice. Eight Views features some of Ma's best-known iconography: her unconventional use of ink and her multifaceted use of the garden as metaphor. Her incorporation of time as material is also significant, whether expressed through performance, narrative, or the movement of light, air and liquid. Upon entering the low-lit exhibition, the viewer is enveloped by the show's two signature works. A 43-foot long, scroll-like landscape painting on translucent acrylic is layered with shadows created from light projections across its surface. Composed of many individual panels that cover three walls, the paintings' shimmering looking-glass surface is designed to flow together, offering a panoramic view and placing the viewer's reflection within the landscape. The nuanced painting, as subtle and mystical as the traditional works it references, speaks of the artist's contribution to both Eastern and Western artistic discourse. In the center of the room, a striking, large-scale black paper floor sculpture of a garden stands, tight and controlled in places and wild and unruly in others. Its accordion-like structure allows its form to adapt to a variety of settings. Based on her opera set design, the garden also references the live plants worldwide that the artist has painted with Chinese ink, hereby transforming them into three-dimensional Chinese landscape scrolls that change over time.
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