Opposite House: Feng Shu’s Art Exhibition

Last Thursday was the cocktail reception for Feng Shu’s solo exhibition in the lobby gallery of the Opposite House boutique hotel.

Hosted by F2 Gallery, the exhibition showcased an assortment of Feng Shu’s incredibly beautiful, over-sized ornate porcelain insects featuring a blinged out scorpion to a variety of colorful dragonfly-type insects with long-stretching silver wings and even a gigantic floral skull.

A very unique exhibition, I was most impressed by the mutant winged insect creations and I was curious to learn more about this artist’s fascination with insects and his motivation to create such imaginative creatures.

In an article posted by Ling-Yun Tang about Feng Shu’s artistic background and insect creations, he explains:

The fantastic scale and ergonomic forms of the creatures transports them out of the world of everyday human nuisance and shifts the conceptual reference point from the entomological (?) to historical and philosophical concerns. Giant mosquitoes suck blood from their victims through piercing syringe proboscises; muscular spiders perch atop threatening needle sharp legs; scorpions armed with hefty pincers raise their venomous tails ready to subdue their prey; and beady-eyed flies at rest, at once beautiful and instinctively repulsive, await their next meal. The finely painted surfaces of the insect and arachnid bodies-some in Ming-Qing blue and white and pastel floral patterns, and others in abstract geometric triangles and irregular blobs-paired with contrasting metal limbs give the overall impression that these ancient creatures are science-fictional mutants, part animal, part robot. Do they represent the inevitable intrusion of outside change in Feng Shu‘s imagined historic past? Or are they the odd by-product of a Chinese modernity that is looking to move forward in the 21st century by openly embracing the agents of technological progress? The answers can go either way. It is this interplay between tradition and transformation that typifies Feng Shu‘s interpretation of contemporary society, where the mutual struggle between predator and prey can never be disaggregated from the larger question of evolutionary survival.

If you are interested in checking out these unique creations in person, you can visit Feng Shu’s art exhibition until September 30, 2010.

LumDimSum Photo Gallery of Feng Shu’s Exhibition at the Opposite House’s lobby gallery:

Featured Masterpieces:

I thought this exhibition was meant to be a solo exhibition for Feng Shu, but four paintings by Jin Yu were also displayed on the side of the lobby. All four paintings display the same two women in motion, with their bodies pressed against a glass surface. Interesting paintings, but I did not get the relationship with Feng Shu’s exhibition of large, porcelain insects.  Photos displayed below: