Song Yige, curated by Zeng Fanzhi

SONG YIGE Curated by Zeng Fanzhi

SONG YIGE

27 JANUARY – 27 FEBRUARY

SONG YIGE Curated by Zeng Fanzhi

Marlborough Fine Art 6 Albemarle Street London W1S 4BY

+44 (0)20 7629 5161 mfa@marlboroughfineart.com www.marlboroughlondon.com

INTRODUCTION

by Zeng Fanzhi

Song Yige’s paintings demonstrate many details from daily life, such as the buckets and bath taps. However, she can always take these elements of everyday life out of the ordinary.

I first met her in 2008, and immediately recognised her talent and encouraged her to produce her first solo exhibition. Since then, she has continually improved, her painting has become better and better, her confidence has become stronger and stronger, and one can witness her growth through the development of her work.

MEMORY FOR THE FUTURE Lily Le Brun

There are few signs of celebration or dancing in Song Yige’s Dance Party. Its six attendees stand in a row; arms linked so there are no gaps between them. Alternating heights suggest that they are couples, but they hold six balloons that obscure their faces with comical accuracy, and they all wear long, dressing-gown-like robes, which make their figures illegible. Even the background is stark; the figures stand against a flat tricolour of greys.

The atmosphere is not unwelcoming, however, it is intriguing.

Her Hands, 2015, 96 x 97 cm

Olympia, 2014, 154 x 138 cm

Inflected with contradiction and black humour, Song Yige’s paintings are always enigmatic and often disquieting. She paints common objects that look familiar but also out-of-place, and scenes that are rich with sensibility but impoverished of narrative sense. Oddness is persistent and inescapable, motivated by incongruity between object, context and atmosphere.

In these imagined, intangible places, small amounts of brightly coloured paint are found dripping down steps, smeared on the floor, or splattered on walls. These are continual reminders that painting is a territory where fact and fantasy mingle and play.

Pictures “automatically jump out of my mind,” Song says. “Like memories, they are just some sort of abstract extract and purification of real life too.” She has an accomplished painting technique, and though the oil paint is mixed thinly and applied lightly the finish is confident, fluent and sumptuous. Lighter hues are often so amplified by dark surroundings that the paintings seem illuminated from within, encouraging the sense that they are windows onto alternative worlds.

Song believes she was always going to become a painter. As a child growing

up in Harbin, a large industrial city in northern China, she would forgo sweets for watercolour brushes and drawing paper. Now in her mid-thirties, the way in which a child sees the world continues to influence and inform her work. She has spoken of the roads in Harbin once seeming wide and empty when she was young, but narrow when she returned as an adult. Her paintings often express the sense of seeing something without the framework that experience provides.

Painting an object freed from its typical environment emphasises the disparity between what is seen and how it is interpreted, she thinks. “Every substance has its unique nature, different state of presence, colours, shapes, forms, which people envision differently…” she says. “I am just trying to amplify this simple, essential fact, by creating a context where regular objects are in non‑normal circumstances.”

Song cites Francis Bacon and Renaissance painting as the two main influences on her art; an answer that suggests how important the actual practice of painting – pleasure in the activity, as well as the philosophical questions it raises – is to the work itself.

There are obvious references to be found in her motifs – the bashed-about Greek sculptures in Encounter and Twins, for example, or Her Hands, which echoes the cool simplicity of Durer’s Praying Hands, its delight in drapery, and the greenblue of antique drawing paper. There is subtler evidence in the paintings’ formal qualities – the positioning of forms within space, and the restrained, close tones on the palette.

Francis Bacon spoke of using the motif of the Crucifixion as an “armature” on which to hang “feelings about behaviour and the way life is”, and suggested that depicting it was tantamount to painting a self-portrait.

The recognisable forms in a painting are not necessarily its subject, Bacon is saying, and every painting of Song Yige’s reflects the same conviction. Like Bacon, Song battles against illustration and narrative. In her depiction of people, identifying characteristics are obscured – balloons cover faces, heads are painted from behind, costumes dress bodies – so that gut sensation receives minimal interference. Rather than presenting a conclusion, the motif triggers associations and dislodges memories.

The figure does not even have to be there. In Olympia, for example, the solitary white feather resting on a chaise longue suggests absence rather than emptiness.

The mind is left to add Manet’s model.

Song moved to Beijing in 2008 after graduating from Luxun Academy of Fine Arts in northeast China. Although she has never lived outside of China, her attention to the inner sensations of individuals is more typical of Western thought, and there are barely any visual references in her work that are specific to Eastern culture. Song’s paintings are also a contrast to many other artists of her generation who have turned to cartoons and kitsch for their imagery, or use art as vehicles of political ideas.

Dance Party, 2015, 180 x 203 cm

But Song’s works are not disengaged from contemporary issues; they reflect experience of living in the modern world, everyday sights, objects and feelings. The unassuming grey that seeps into every picture also pervades urban landscapes like Harbin and Beijing; it is the colour of large roads and wide pavements, glass-clad skyscrapers, enveloping, noxious smog. Its presence in Song’s work dominates enough to recall Gerhard Richter’s assessment that grey “has the capacity that no other colour has, to make ‘nothing’ visible”, and that it is “the ideal colour for indifference, fencesitting, keeping quiet, despair. In other words, for states of being and situations that affect one, and for which one would like to find a visual expression.”

Unfamiliarity with a large city can be an infantilising experience, one akin to the

“context where regular objects are in nonnormal circumstances” that Song describes contriving. Again and again her paintings express a palpable sense of solitude and isolation. But, like the curiously welcoming Dance Party, they are not accompanied by despondence – the strength of her painting technique, the vivid colours and the traces of humour preclude this. Song is aware that disorientation also heightens a sense of wonder and of potential, “memory for the future”, as she phrases it.

In one painting, 43 matchsticks form a crowd that loosely resembles the shape of a heart. They stand separate from one another and upright, each casting a discreet shadow. Some are starting to topple, threatening the unity of the group. Bright, jewel-coloured heads distinguish them from the grey background. They are a reminder of hidden energy, waiting to be discovered.

LIST OF WORKS

1. Green, 2010 80 x 100 cm

13. After the Feast, 2015 137 x 89.5 cm

2. Encounter, 2012 159 x 152 cm

14. Backyard Garden, 2015 170 x 205 cm

3. R eborn, 2013 80 x 60 cm

15. Three Turtles, 2015 30 x 30.5 cm

4. Together, 2013 60 x 100 cm

16. Twins, 2015 173.7 x 199 cm

5. Peach Tree, 2013 155 x 154 cm Private Collection

17. Thinker, 2015 202 x 248 cm

6. Diamond Miner, 2014 147 x 110 cm 7. Waiting, 2014 153 x 120 cm 8. Male Star, 2014 53 x 43.5 cm 9. Movie Queen, 2014 60 x 50 cm 10. Olympia, 2014 154 x 138 cm Private Collection 11. Life Journey, 2014 155 x 110 cm Private Collection 12. B read, 2014 103 x 98 cm Private Collection

18. Man with Red Head, 2015 50 x 40 cm 19. The 171st Bone of the Mammoth, 2015 61 x 91 cm 20. Two Baby Leopards, 2015 177 x 152 cm 21. Beginning of Success, 2015 137 x 136 cm 22. Dance Party, 2015 180 x 203 cm 23. Platonic Honeymoon, 2015 141 x 160 cm 24. 43 Matches, 2015 128 x 161.5 cm 25. Line and Circle, 2015 152 x 119 cm 26. Her Hands, 2015 96 x 97 cm

1. Green, 2010 80 x 100 cm

2. Encounter, 2012 159 x 152 cm

3. Reborn, 2013 80 x 60 cm

4. Together, 2013 60 x 100 cm

5. Peach Tree, 2013 155 x 154 cm

6. Diamond Miner, 2014 147 x 110 cm

7. Waiting, 2014 153 x 120 cm

8. Male Star, 2014 53 x 43.5 cm

9. Movie Queen, 2014 60 x 50 cm

10. Olympia, 2014 154 x 138 cm

11. Life Journey, 2014 155 x 110 cm

12. Bread, 2014 103 x 98 cm

13. After the Feast, 2015 137 x 89.5 cm

14. Backyard Garden, 2015 170 x 205 cm

15. Three Turtles, 2015 30 x 30.5 cm

16. Twins, 2015 173.7 x 199 cm

17. Thinker, 2015 202 x 248 cm

18. Man with Red Head, 2015 50 x 40 cm

19. The 171st Bone of the Mammoth, 2015 61 x 91 cm

20. T wo Baby Leopards, 2015 177 x 152 cm

21. Beginning of Success, 2015 137 x 136 cm

22. Dance Party, 2015 180 x 203 cm

23. Platonic Honeymoon, 2015 141 x 160 cm

24. 4 3 Matches, 2015 128 x 161.5 cm

25. Line and Circle, 2015 152 x 119 cm

26. Her Hands, 2015 96 x 97 cm

BIOGRAPHY

1980 Born in Harbin, Hei Longjiang Province, China 2007 G raduated with Masters Degree as a Post Graduate Course from Lu Xun Fine Arts Institute Oil Painting Department Third Studio

Works and lives in Beijing

SOLO EXHIBITIONS 2014 “ SONG YIGE: Another Dimension” Sotheby’s Gallery, Hong Kong 2011 “ SONG Yige”, HanArt gallery, Hong Kong 2010 “ Song Yige”, Hyundai Gallery, Seoul, Korea 2010 “Yi Ge”, ARTMIA Gallery, Beijing

GROUP EXHIBITIONS 2015 “ I AM BECAUSE OF YOU”, YUANSPACE, Beijing 2013 Opening Exhibition, Zhong Gallery, Beijing 2013 “@WHAT”, ARKO, Seoul, Korea 2011 “ ARTMIA Living”, ARTMIA Gallery, Beijing

Marlborough

London Marlborough Fine Art (London) Ltd 6 Albemarle Street London, W1S 4BY Telephone: +44-(0)20-7629 5161 Telefax: +44-(0)20-7629 6338 mfa@marlboroughfineart.com info@marlboroughgraphics.com www.marlboroughlondon.com Marlborough Contemporary 6 Albemarle Street London, W1S 4BY Telephone: +44-(0)20-7629 5161 Telefax: +44-(0)20-7629 6338 info@marlboroughcontemporary.com www.marlboroughlondon.com New York Marlborough Gallery Inc. 40 West 57th Street New York, N.Y. 10019 Telephone: +1-212-541 4900 Telefax: +1-212-541 4948 mny@marlboroughgallery.com www.marlboroughgallery.com

Marlborough Chelsea 545 West 25th Street New York, N.Y. 10001 Telephone: +1-212-463 8634 Telefax: +1-212-463 9658 chelsea@marlboroughgallery.com Madrid GalerĂ­a Marlborough SA Orfila 5 28010 Madrid Telephone: +34-91-319 1414 Telefax: +34-91-308 4345 info@galeriamarlborough.com www.galeriamarlborough.com Barcelona Marlborough Barcelona Enric Granados, 68 08008 Barcelona.

Telephone: +34-93-467 4454 Telefax: +34-93-467 4451 infobarcelona@galeriamarlborough.com

Design: Shine Design, London Print: Impress Print Services Catalogue No.:652 ISBN: 978-1-909707-25-2 Š 2016 Marlborough

Marlborough