ChinaSquare is pleased to announce ECHOES & REFLECTIONS, a group exhibition featuring Jaffa Lam, Lin Yan, Shen Chen, Shiyi Sheng, Richard Tsao, Wei Qingji, Zhang Chunyang, and Zhang Wei. As diverse as these artists’ choice of media – oil, ink wash, mixed media, sculpture, video and installation – are their life experiences. All eight artists live and work around the world, though all stem from the same root – China. In their artistic endeavors they transcend countries and cultures, reflecting experiences and observations and echoing the motherland.

Jaffa Laam Lam, aka Lin Lan, born in Fujian province, has had her sculpture and installations exhibited around the world and earned her MFA from the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Her work, made mainly of wood, metal, and glass, juxtaposes ideas from differing cultures together, forming a new collective reality. Lam’s installation pieces are narrative, and like a diary, unveil raw emotions and observations from her journey as a visiting artist to New York City.

Lin Yan, born in Beijing, earned her BA from the Central Academy of Fine Arts and her MA in Studio Art at Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania. Though she uses traditional Chinese painting materials, her black drawing on paper series is poetic and delicate, though strong with symbolism.

Richard Tsao, born in Thailand to Chinese parents, studied painting at the Art Students League in New York. His abstract paintings and mixed media pieces draw upon his childhood years in Thailand, life in New York, and reminiscence of China. His outer space like two dimensional pieces, full of deeply saturated colors, extend beyond the canvas surface, and can take up to two or three years to complete.

Shen Chen, born in China, earned his BFA from Shanghai Art College and his MFA from Boston University. Shen Chen’s overlapping brush strokes create simple patterns and lines resembling Chinese brush painting, though he works in Western materials. His work is infused with the philosophical notion of contradictions. His paintings have changed dramatically through out his career, as he is always redeveloping his concept of the process of making art.

Shiyi Sheng, born in Jinhua, Zhejiang, graduated from Normal University of Zhejiang and studied at Ecole Supérieure des Beau- Arts de Marseille in France. Currently she lives in New York and France. Based on a biblical fable, her video work examines and questions issues in everyday society – how do people from different countries, cultures, and backgrounds understand one another, and ultimately how can diverse groups cooperate and grow together.

Wei Qingji, born in Qingdao, Shandong province, received his postgraduate degree from the Mural Department of the Central Academy of Fine Arts. Wei’s unique technique establishes a new language of expression, bringing allegory and narration to his ink and wash paintings. “What I’m most concerned with is the relation of the traditional and the contemporary, though it may be vague and ambiguous.”—Wei Qingji

Zhang Chunyang, born in Changchun of Jilin province, received her Master’s degree in Oil Painting from the Central Academy of Fine Arts. Her oil / installation pieces, The Enamel Mugs, are examples of how once political propaganda infiltrated people’s daily lives and still haunt their minds even today. The exaggerated proportion of the mugs and the printed slogans on silky fabric, sealed in Plexiglas, separate Zhang’s work from real history, twisting it with irony.

Zhang Wei, presently lives in Beijing and was born in Changsha, Hunan province. He graduated from Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts. Zhang’s oil series, Chinese Stories in American Rooms, expresses his thoughts on the increased popularity of Chinese art and culture across the globe. Influenced by the American artist Edward Hopper, Zhang’s images combine both Western elements and Chinese symbols, ultimately transporting the viewer between cultures.