Lan Zhiyi|An Afternoon Reverie
Aug 8th - Sep 8th, 2024
Tue - Sun 10:00 - 18:00
Moonlight Forest: Zhubang 2000 A 2007
Lan Zhiyi’s debut solo exhibition “An Afternoon Reverie” will be showcased at the Moonlight Forest art space from August 8th to September 8th, 2024. This exhibition will feature a series of the artist’s recent paintings, centered around her time in the countryside of Yangzhou. Lan Zhiyi has recently returned to this familiar pastoral terrain, perceiving a shift in rumination compared to her yesteryears. From her vision, she sees trees, ponds, reflections, rooms, and other objects and realms, revealing previously unseen and often neglected facets. Through the attenuation of chromatic tones and the abstract deconstruction of space, her works focus, stretch, distort, and spread, guiding viewers to comprehend a different kind of tranquillity connotation from various vantage points.
In her early creative period, she focused on capturing and magnifying the details of human figures in her paintings, emphasizing the lines and tension in their forms. Compared to her previous work, Lan Zhiyi now prefers to use saturated colors and bold brushstrokes, allowing herself to make mistakes on the canvas. She is unconcerned with leaving blank spaces or having overly intricate brushwork. She mentions that her ideas are constantly evolving, and therefore, all perspectives are continually tested by the passage of time.
Lan Zhiyi’s paintings often shift the focal point between objects and individuals, transitioning from tangible forms to mysterious silhouettes, conveying a narrative that is both captivating and enigmatic. In "Trees," she uses a layer of thin paint on rough wooden boards to depict poplars, with the motion of the pencil strokes suggesting the movement of leaves, followed by intricate details drawn with a fine pen. The distant full moon casts a hazy reflection of the trees in the water, while nearby objects transform into elements of nature or human figures, imbued with a mystical quality achieved through truly abstract, realistic forms and figures. Her method of capturing and expressing everyday life in her paintings goes far beyond mere simplification, intertwining narrative elements with the materials she uses. Viewers can see how the inherent textures of her chosen media—canvas, wood, cardboard, glass—reshape the interactions within the painting, revealing the movement of plants, the tranquillity of ponds, the stretch of bodies, and the embrace of spaces.
The term “material” extends beyond its literal meaning to encompass the forms of expression, akin to the endeavor of understanding how lines or backgrounds influence the entire work, or continually manipulating the objects observed. In “Noon Break,” the figure is positioned slightly to the left of the wood, with the indentations on the bed serving as “evidence” of her rest. The curtains and the natural texture of the wooden boards divide the composition, yet the diluted paint remains consistent, blending seamlessly between the transparent and the tangible. Lan Zhiyi’s images seem to undergo a distillation process. She avoids interpreting the details, focusing instead on the fundamental shapes that constitute her observed images and the handling of spatial depth.
Through the fusion of works and space, the exhibition has evolved into an amorphous and indeterminate phenomenon. The non-traditional, non-linear layout promotes a light fluidity, with elements like carpets, small trees, and wooden chairs integrating with the artwork to guide viewers through her nostalgic memories of the countryside and the poetry within her gaze. “This bridge in the middle of the fields, walking on it while watching the waves of wheat or rice gives a sense of being connected by the wind. Especially now, during the wheat and rice harvest season, the fields after the rain appear silver, which is very beautiful.” Accompanied by this piece of ”prose,” viewers traverse through text and image, awaiting Lan Zhiyi to present her answers.