At a recent preview in Beijing’s Red Gate Gallery, artist Zhou Jirong’s large mixed media canvases drew a substantial crowd. The contemporary art gallery is housed in a Ming Dynasty guardhouse, where the work has to be exceptional to compete with the beauty of the architecture. Inside, Chinese art students rubbed shoulders with prospective buyers […]

Can we call graphic design “art”? There are two approaches: one is when I work to express myself, the other is when clients come with a request and I have to find a solution. But, in both cases, there is a similitude: creation. It feels sometimes like graphic design consists of solving problems. I have […]

On September 26th, last year, the Tianjin Academy of Fine Arts celebrated its Centenary Anniversary. The Academy may be seen as Tianjin’s key contemporary cultural agency in promoting new visions and technologies within the Fine Arts—both traditional and synthesis practices are offered in its courses.    Deng Guo Yuan – Laurens Tan   Guo Yuan, […]

My proposal to research the civic role of public sculpture in China was the basis for the Australia-China Council artist in residency in Beijing. This research was to inform my new work for “Critical Mass,” an Australia-China exhibition to be held in Sydney and Beijing during the Olympics in 2008 (curated by Binghui Huangfu, of […]

I don’t know exactly when I started drawing. As far back as I can remember, I always had a pen in my hand and ideas inside my mind. Then I started exploring computer graphics at 15 years of age and I never stopped enjoying this mix of drawing and technology. After five years of professional […]

Zhang Hui once acted the lead role in a movie called Soap Opera, by Wu Ershan. The plot revolved around a middle-aged man who was tortured by the racket of everyday life, constantly struggling in the intermediary space between normal and abnormal. The expression of the man’s face was always that of numbness, like a […]

As a platform for my findings and proposals, octomat.com was formed in 1996 as entrepreneurial design research model. Octomat works to link the disciplines of industrial design, sculpture, multimedia, animation and cultural studies with a broad interest in game theories in order to contemplate the game as metaphor. The octomat logo is a brand-figuration of […]

China is no doubt the most attractive centre of attention for the world today, not only in terms of its economic development, but also in terms of its cultural and social mutations. Accordingly, China’s contemporary art is becoming a new emerging force in the global art scene at the beginning of the 21st century. The […]

German-Danish sculptor, painter and performance artist Christian Lemmerz has been known for his incredible life-like marble sculptures, blood paintings and installations of dead pigs in display cases since the 80s. I had a rather arbitrary talk to Christian about his oeuvre, audience and the current state of art. Much like Christian’s artworks, our conversation circled […]

Ask Tony Gill, 39, what the role of the artist is and he’ll answer: “Shaman.” Healing through art is exactly what Gill has been doing for the last two decades. Having grown up in England, Gill first decided he wanted to be an artist when he was at an exhibition with his mother. She pointed […]