CHEN Wenbo

Chen Wenbo’s works are intensely detailed large-scaled canvases, painted in bright, glossy colours in a realist fashion, and focusing on small details of everyday life. His series of paintings ‘Vitamin’ depicts clubbing youths posing in a sensual way, their faces covered with pills in a rainbow of colour, a reference to the increasing use of drugs by Chinese young adults in the country’s large cities, and a comment on the speed of consumerism and urbanisation in the artist’s country. Some of Chen’s work portray small, everyday objects with immense attention to detail and with playful use of colours.

Chen Wenbo was born in 1969 in Chongquing, Sichuan Province, and graduated in 1991 from the Sichuan Academy of Fine Arts. During the 1990’S, Chen was a key representative of the Sichuan painting school, and his work was strongly related to Chinese Kitsch Art, mixing vivid, glossy colours with post-pop cartoon inspired aesthetics. The artist currently lives and works in Beijing. He has exhibited in locations such as the Berkeley Art Museum, the Kunstmuseum Bern, Loft Gallery in Paris, and the Peabody Essex Museum amongst many others.

 

Image: CHEN Wenbo, Vitamin Z 43 F, Lithography, 60 x 83.4 cm, 50 editions + 10 AP