These days, contemporary oil painting The Night's Silence, which is on display at Art Museum in Nanjing, China is concerned by public, and also raises deep study on whether the oil painting can reflect the reality of people's lives .
This is a solo a painting exhibition of Gao Lei, a young teacher from Nanjing Arts Institute. The works have two series "juvenile" and "where", and with a unique perspective, the artist intercepts moments from life and news events, and expresses the anxiety and depression, helplessness and anxiety, and the pursuit of hope deeply inside the heart of contemporary people .
It is a topic of endless controversy in art world whether art can intervene in daily life and this painting exhibition also attracted attention. In this regard, Gao Lei confirmed that this exhibition concerns about the survival of the state of contemporary reality. He said many of the works in the exhibition are triggered by some real events, and there will be extension, expanding and thinking after the intervention of their own language in painting. "I paint what I feel, and I feel from my life. We do not see the beautiful sea every day, but we have these things every day including going to work by riding in crowded bus and being scolded by the boss for being late. Why can’t we use art forms to reflect the relationship between art and daily life and why can’t we see it in the gallery? "
In the exhibition, a "receding figure" in the "Where" series attracted a lot of visitors to stop to appreciate. Gao Lei told reporters, "It was a summer evening, I saw four teenagers go out from the net cafe whose receding figure gave me a great touch. I could not see their faces, but they are four fresh young life. Where are they going? What is their future? The answer is various and everyone can have their own imagination and thinking in front of the painting."
The former vice president of Nanjing Arts Institute, the famous painter Shen Xinggong consider that some young artists are open-minded and more concerned about the reality, which makes these conceptual works have a certain ambiguity, lets people bring their own personal feelings into the appreciation process, evokes different associations, rather than specific scenes in the traditional painting. In regrad to the two expressions of traditional and contemporary art, Shen Xinggong’s view is inclusive.
