Black Dots
陸超 | 黑點

LU CHAO Black Dots  陸超 |黑點 
07/03/2019 – 11/05/2019
HdM GALLERY – 1st Floor, 42 Conduit Street, Mayfair, London W1S 2YH

 

This Spring ‘Black Dots’ by Lu Chao will be present at HdM GALLERY. The sixth instalment in a range of sequential exhibitions exploring the colour black, ‘Black Dots’ continues Lu Chao’s trademark investigation into issues of identity and the unknown, mass society vs. the individual. Following exhibitions at HdM GALLERY in Beijing, this will be Lu Chaos fifth show with the gallery and his first exhibition at the London gallery. The show will open on March 7th and last until May 11th 2019.

 

A collector of faces
Inspired by both Chinese and Western philosophy, Lu Chao’s large scale, monochromatic oil paintings are surrealist dreamscapes. An astute observer of society in all its guises, Lu Chao’s approach is part painter, part sociologist and his paintings shine a searing spotlight on the human condition. Drawing inspiration from the quotidian, Lu Chao uses newspapers, magazines but also his personal experience and daily travels to create his canvases, scouring the faces of passers-by before transcribing these faces to canvas. He describes, “imagining the story behind every face.”

 

Dark Matter
“Every dot on the canvas is like the birth of a new ‘life’ in the universe, and its relationship to time and space makes me very curious” – Lu Chao

Influenced by his upbringing in densely-populated mainland China, Lu Chao is fascinated by the notion of the crowd – “I love crowds, I fear them and I am curious about the life of each member.” His previous paintings are populated by miniature armies of figures and teem with a restless humanity. Rendered with meticulous precision, Lu Chao’s miniature figures and his use of monochrome reference traditional Chinese ink painting which he developed a passion for whilst at university in Beijing. Just as Lu Chao draws out the individual from within the crowd in his crowd scenes, in the new work, ‘Black Dots’ he uses the dot as a symbol to explore ideas of “similarity, uniqueness, tininess and the mystery of life.”

About the Artist
Born in 1988 in Shenyang, Lu Chao trained at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing before completing his Masters at the Royal College of Art in London. He currently works between London and Beijing and has exhibited widely, both in China and Europe, and has participated in major art fairs such as Art Basel and Art Basel Hong Kong. His work features in several major collections induding the Louis Vuitton Collection (Paris), the Today Art Museum (Beijing) and the MARTa Herford museum in Germany. The exhibition will be accompanied by a catalogue with academic texts by the artist’s professor Jonathan Miles (Royal College of Art) and curator James Putnam as well as an interview by Olivia Sand in Asian Art Newspaper.

 

在今年春季，藝術家陸超個展《黑點》將在HdM畫廊倫敦空間展出。此次展覽《黑點》延續了陸超的以“黑”顏色為中心展開的標誌性符號，與過往六個個展形成一種無名的序列感，意在探索大眾與個體，身份認知和遺失的問題。此次是陸超與HdM畫廊的第五次個展合作，也是其第一次以個展形式在倫敦展出。展覽將在 2019 年 3 月 7 日開幕，持續至 5 月 11 日。

受到東西方哲學的啟發，陸超在大尺幅的油畫布上創造出一個單色的超現實主義幻境。像一位精明的社會觀察者，陸超扮演著一半記錄者、一半社會學家的角色，其創作似一盞炙熱的聚光燈照出社會百態。日常生活是陸超汲取靈感的重要來源，報紙、雜誌、個人經驗以及旅行都為其提供養分。他像一位面孔的收集者，將這些在場景中一閃而過的卻存於腦海的面孔轉化進筆下的畫面之中，對黑白的單色運用則源於陸超大學時期開始對中國傳統水墨國畫的喜愛和研究。

陸超在人口稠密的中國出生成長，浩大的人流常常使他感到著迷——“我喜歡人群又感到害怕，我不禁好奇和試圖去想象每張面孔背後的故事。” 過往的作品中，陸超仿佛塑造了一支支微型軍隊，充斥著不安的人性。陸超嘗試在其所繪畫的龐雜人群中凸顯個體的辨識性，新作品中他用“黑點”作為象征，試圖探討相似性、獨特性、單調性和生命奧秘的命題——“畫布上的每一個黑點就像宇宙中的一個新生命的誕生，他們和時間以及空間的連結讓我想去探索。”陸超如是說。

陸超 1988 年生於中國沈陽，本科畢業於中央美術學院油畫系，後赴英國皇家藝術學院獲研究生學位，現工作生活在倫敦。陸超曾多次參加國內外畫廊和機構展覽，如北京HdM畫廊、巴黎Nathalie Obadia畫廊和倫敦Rosenfeld Porcini畫廊；北萊茵馬爾塔赫爾福博物館、倫敦維多利亞宮倫敦、成都當代美術館和北京今日美術館等。近年獲得薩奇New Sensation 提名和英國Painter – Stianers Goron Luton獎等眾多獎項。

 

Edited by Qiwen Ke
編輯：柯淇雯