Ai Jing “Love”

Marlborough (Midtown)

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The Directors of Marlborough Gallery presents an exhibition of new works by Ai Jing. Love will be the artist’s first exhibition with Marlborough Gallery, and her first major solo exhibition in New York.

Born in Shenyang, Liaoning Province, China, the artist rose to prominence in the 1990s as a singer-songwriter. In 1999, she began her painting studies with contemporary artist Zhang Xiaogang, eventually devoting herself to visual art. It was in 2007 that the artist began to show her paintings.
Ai Jing spent several years living in New York and working on the Love paintings. In this series, the artist creates the word “love” in thickly impastoed block letters in oils and oil stick on canvas. The almost sculptural surfaces in a wide variety of complex color schemes, invite prolonged reflection on the English letters as well as the concept of the “love” being depicted. The works are simultaneously expressive and rigorous, ebullient and strong. Although the pattern and theme are repeated, each canvas bears the flavor of its own universe. Far from merely a graphic representation of a word, the artist “dives into it and expands it, changing her languages to incorporate the characteristics of our times. Her love is delicate but not abstruse”, as Chen Lusheng, the Ex-Deputy of the National Museum of China writes in his catalogue essay. Mr. Lusheng goes on to state that, “Ai Jing …goes through great pains to achieve a kind of rapport between concept and material. She spares no effort when creating artworks. She uses love to protect art and thus makes her contribution to contemporary Chinese art. Her art—like her love—has no borders.” Indeed, the paintings are loving portraits of the greatest of human emotions.

Ai Jing has had solo exhibitions at Today Art Museum, Beijing, China (2008); National Museum of China, Beijing, China (2012 and 2013); Longmen Art Project, Shanghai, China; China Art Museum Shanghai, Shanghai, China (2014); and Veneranda Biblioteca Ambrosiana Museum, Milan, Italy (2015). Her work can be found in the DSL Collection, Paris, France and the National Museum of China, Beijing, China.