Chen Shaofeng, Dialogue with the peasants of Tiangongsi villages

1 July – 12 August 2006
Chen Shaofeng

Dialogue with the peasants of the Tiangongsi Villages.

In the isolated and remote villages of rural China breathtaking portrait artist Chen Shaofeng has been working on a masterpiece.

His art has been to paint scores of Chinese villagers – while they in turn paint him.

The exercise is a study of the relationship between the painter and the painted. But when presented the over all effect is far more than that.

Hundreds of the portraits have been produced and are presented en mass – hundreds of pictures side by side with one another. The portrait of the villager next to the villager’s portrait of the artist.

The effect is to reiterate the relationship between the two painters while at the same time throwing into stark relief the views of two utterly differing worlds.

http://www.firstsite.uk.net/exhibitions/exhibitions_shaofeng.html