Author: WANG GUANGYI 王广义

Size: 45×79.5cm

Signed and dated: Painted in 1986

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signed in initial and dated 1986
LITERATURE
2006 Wang Guangyi Art and People / P72 / Sichuan Fine Arts Publishing House

Wang Guangyi was born in a harsh era and environment, which is clearly reflected in the cold colors in his‘frozen northern polar’ series of paintings: the people in the paintings huddle together and seem to yearn for a kind of warmth and comfort that they will never get. His early life gives his works a layer of frozen soil color that will never melt. However, the natural environment in the North exudes a healthy (even if cold and heartless) style tone, which seems to suggest the possibility of a new artistic power.
Starting from the frozen northern polar series, Wang Guangyi said goodbye to landscape paintings and turned to philosophical creation. These works embody a strong sense of northern gloom, just like the cold forest in the landscape paintings and scenery paintings of the 17th century, or the desolation reflected in Munk’s famous work The scream. This gloomy feeling permeated the rational philosophy that Wang Guangyi had absorbed during his stay in Hangzhou: Freud, Nietzsche, Hegel, Sartre, Rousseau and wittstein. The design and concept in painting make it appear simple and concise.
——Karen Smith