Lin Yilin (1964) Lin’s artistic practices have always been an energetic and witty mingling of social architecture and everyday life. In his main interest, the ways in which how we would ordinarily relate to spaces of communities amidst urban development, Lin tends to organize his artworks as a means of engaging the architecture of the space. The artist employs a variety of media, ranging from sculpture and installation to live actions, photography and videos featuring outdoor performances. Best known for his installation works made from stacking bricks, Lin was orginally trained as a sculptor, and later became interested in architecture and found brick walls an expressive means through which to explore the relationship between sculpture and architecture. For Lin, the bricked wall engenders a symbolic construction between the viewers and him. The wall acts itself, architecturally, in a repeating geometry that ebbs and flows according to the artist’s direct physical response to the place upon which the wall is embodied. Liu Bolin (1973) "A graduate from the Shandong College of Arts in 1995, Liu went on to obtain his Master of Fine Arts from Beijing's Central Academy of Fine Arts in 2001. Having come of age during the early 1990s, Liu had witnessed the country's rapid economic growth and with it, extensive destruction of historical sites and the consequent social instability. Best known as ""The Invisible Man"", Liu would cover himself with paint to perfectly ""disappear"" into the background; his ""Hiding in the city"" series of photographic works was originally inspired by the destruction of Suo Jia Cun, one of Beijing's largest artist villages, in 2005. ""I was a meaningless person, according to society. Those years made me feel like people can exist or completely disappear."" - Liu Bolin" Liu Chuang (1978) Since graduating from Hubei Art Academy in 2001, Liu has exhibited in a number of international museums, including Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art (Greece, 2004), Mediations Biennale (Poland, 2008), and Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art (Oslo, Norway 2007). Now living and working in Beijing, Liu first developed his artistic practice in the boomtown of Shenzhen and his oeuvre is a personal commentary on the effects of China's extraordinary urbanisation. Liu is a highly political artist, described as a "social interventionist whose practice seeks to destabilise the comforts of daily life through aesthetic disruption of social rules". Liu Jianhua (1962) At the age of 12, Liu was sent to work with his uncle, a Chinese arts and crafts master, in the city of Jingdezhen, China's historical capital of ceramic production since the Song Dynasty (9601279). Liu would hardly expect that ceramics would one day become his signature medium, albeit with very different meaning. Indeed, Liu has opened up a whole new horizon on the traditional appreciation of Chinese ceramics. His earlier "Regular Fragile" exhibition, using ceramics to copy ordinary objects from us – from a flower, a pair of shoes, children’s toys and even a pillow – to the piece of paper and bone showcased here, continue to amaze viewers, not only for their visual impact but also for their subtle zen meanings. "That's my deep interpretation of ceramics," Liu explains. "I especially don't like any focus on making ceramics itself. I try to explore an 'undeveloped' part of ceramics. Almost nobody has ever thought that ceramics could be used in such a way." Unlike his peers who would often stick to one symbolic art language for years, Liu repeatedly goes beyond such constraints. Liu Wei (1972) Liu’s paintings are impressive in scale as well as in consistency. Mostly held in douche and dark colors, however, there is something unsettling and uncanny in his painted environments. Cryptic titles such as ‘Mentally Disabled People’s Thoughts Impossible to Aprove’, ‘Gambling Without Answer’, and ‘Superstition’s Implication’ also indicate that there is more at stake as what is visible to the eye. He elaborates on the notion of space, both interior and exterior, and how such spaces seem to construct their very own narrative. Often, these places are laden with anonymity and vastness, whether it be new industrial buildings or run-down generic habitats. Liu Weijian (1981) Now established as one of China's leading sculptors, Liu started out working in porcelain factories in his native Jiangxi province, in the city of Jingdezhen, world famous for its porcelain production. Later, he studied sculpture and is well known for his interpretations of China's emergence as the factory floor of the world. His sculpture and installation often recreates assembly lines, piles of electronic waste and broken porcelain figures. China makes goods for the world and the garbage left over from those goods often gets sent back to China. Liu collects some of it and packages it together for his installations, which sometimes show goods spilling out of crates, boxes and trucks. His ceramic and porcelain and plastic works are centered on China's modernization. Lu Chao (1988) Lu completed his BA (Painting) at Beijing's China Central Academy of Fine Art in 2012 and subsequently graduated from the MA (Painting) at London's Royal College of Art in 2014. Having grown up at a time when China's social and economic environment were on the rise, Lu's childhood was somewhat sheltered from the angst felt by the earlier generation of Chinese artists. Lu's oeuvre is largely inspired by the theme of crowds and have been described as "a visual conference consisting of Chinese Classical painting, existential philosophy, Japanese manga comics, stage settings for the plays of Samuel Beckett, Goya's ink studies and the drawings of Philip Guston". Lu Hao (1969) Lu is well known for his models of Beijing, his playfulness with architecture and geographical images in rapidly evolving modern China. He is also known for his crystal palaces, his elaborate installations and his use of plastics to recreate stone and steel objects. He studied at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing and now lives and works in Beijing. Lu PIngyuan (1984) A graduate from the China Academy of Art (2007), Lu is an emerging artist who works across all different media including video, installation, performance and painting. In 2012, together with two other artists, he established the group "Guest" and became one of the leading proponents of digital art publication "PDF". Since then, Lu has collected and recorded large numbers of supernatural stories, some of which were real experiences, all presenting a certain contemporary "spirit". Lu was invited to participate in a Swedish artist-in-residence program in 2011 and held a solo exhibition "Time Capsule in the Gallery Box", in Gothenburg, Sweden. Other solo exhibitions include: Unexpected Discoveries, MadeIn Gallery, Shanghai (2015), Waiting for an Artist, Goethe Open Space, Goethe Institute, Shanghai (2013), Not Included, Hemuse Gallery, Beijing (2012), Autonomous Breathing, in M50 Creative Space, Shanghai (2010). He participated to numerous group shows among which: Archipelago, V Art Center, Shanghai (2013), Reperforming History, Bund 18 Gallery, Shanghai (2011) and Reflections of Minds, MoCA, Shanghai (2010). Lu Song (1982) Having completed both his Bachelor and Master degrees in the UK (BA from University of Wolverhampton, and MA from Wimbledon College of Art London), it is not surprising to note the European influence in Lu's works. He deliberately turns away from realism and figurative representation, both of which have long been part of the Chinese painting tradition. At the same time, his interest in experimenting with techniques and subject matter can be easily traced to his Chinese roots. Lu’s artistic development can be observed in his remarkable use of color to create unique effects and atmospheres. While some areas of the canvas are precisely rendered with clear outlines, other equally important areas are only vaguely suggested. He lets the heavily diluted paint run across the canvas in a way that figurative structures are not formed by a clear brush strokes, but by the rills of the mixing paints. Despite all unpredictability of the material Lu manages to control the process of image development by leaving certain parts of the canvas unpainted and like that skillfully carves out his subject. Since 2010, Lu has had several solo exhibitions and participated in a number of group shows around the world, the most recent of which was "China Arte Brasil" in Sao Paolo. Lu Xinjian (1977) Having specialised in graphic design at Nanjing Arts Institute, China, Lu moved to the Netherlands and graduated with a MFA in Interactive Media and Environments. In 2006, he was awarded the Chaumont Studio prize at the International Poster Festival Chaumont in France. Lu has been widely published, with a number of solo and group exhibitions in China and around the world. Lui Chun Kwong (1956) With over 25 years' experience as a Fine Arts teacher at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Lui has been a mentor to many leading artists in Hong Kong as well as an established abstract painter in his own right. He has also witnessed the city's evolving art scene, from the early days as a British colony to the post-1997 concern with local identity, and finally to the "completely frivolous subject matters" of the current generation of artists. Lui's own artistic production has remained consistent - his signature abstract paintings of vertical stripes can be found in public and private collections worldwide.
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