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Magician Space is proud to present a solo exhibition of work by Wang Zhongjie, featuring paintings continued by the artist following his previous exhibition at the gallery in 2016.

Wang Zhongjie’s artistic practice focuses on essential states of life, on the real existence that is so often obscured by secular life. In Wang Zhongjie’s artistic trajectory, the year 2009 is an important turning point. Prior to then, his paintings were full of a sense of dark and magical realism, their animalistic quality with half-human, half-beast figures conveying the complex reality of the artist’s shifting between romantic imagination and the ordinary tasks of daily life. Since 2009 however, the narrative and figurative no longer appear in Wang Zhongjie’s work. Instead, Wang’s interest has turned to such forms as the geometric structure of the frame and color halos, and he has continued these explorations for nearly ten years.

These paintings that retain a fixed structure are not the product of accident. In fact, looking beyond surface appearances they may be seen as reflecting a more essential, internal exploration of Wang Zhongjie’s. Peeling away the shell of such “things” as story, plot, composition and color, Wang Zhongjie attempts to inquire how we should respond to the external world, how individual’s reality can be found amidst myriad phenomenon, and what the tractive force behind things is. In his series of paintings, moody colors are a continuation of darker traits, while the monochromatic tone of the internal spaces spreads out like a fog, making the order of “shape” no longer clear. For Wang Zhongjie, what he is searching for is always the inner strength hidden under appearances, invisible and yet authentically present.