Wang Chuan 王川
Born in Chengdu in 1953, China
Bachelor degree and graduated from the Traditional Chinese Painting of Sichuan Fine Art Institute in 1982
Now Living andWorking in Beijing and Shenzhen, China
Wang Chuan is a key figure in the Scar Painting movement. He began his early career as a successful realist painter and turned to abstract painting during the 1985 New Wave period.
In the late 1990s, sudden illness brought Wang Chuan to a turning point that helped transform his practice. Painting became a personalized spiritual practice. The energy at work in his more recent work arises from contrasts of scale, density, line and surface. This introspective and self-reflective way of working has enabled Wang Chuan to achieve insights, especially through the contemplation of oriental philosophy, which cannot be obtained from art history alone. The formal resources of his work are both rich and complex. There is the line as inherited from traditional Chinese art but transferred into oil on canvas; there is graffiti; doodling; drawing in paint; and there are elements of both abstraction and figuration. It is as if Wang Chuan is suspicious of the purity of abstraction and he is equally suspicious of the power of figuration.
With many solo exhibitions, not only in mainland China but also in the USA, Germany and Taiwan, Wang Chuan’s work has been the
subject of discussion in many books by some of the most prominent scholars of Chinese painting, including Gao Minglu, Li Xianting, Wu Hung, Lv Peng and Pan Gongkai, as well as by Western critics such as Robert Morgan. His works can be found in many collections, including the British Museum, The Los Angeles County Museum of Art,Ateneum Museum, Finland, Minsheng Art Museum, M+ Contemporary Art Museum, the Art Museum of Hong Kong
and the Long Museum in Shanghai.
Solo Exhibitions
2018 Wang Chuan Solo Exhibition: Unlimited, A Thousand Plateaus Art Space, Chengdu, China
Wang Chuan Solo Exhibition – The Box, X Gallery, Beijing, China
2017 Wang Chuan Solo Exhibition – Forms of Line, Galerie Du Monde, Hong Kong
2016 Wang Chuan Solo Exhibition Phase Two – Significant Forms, Linbart Gallery, Shanghai
Wang Chuan Solo Exhibition Phase One – The Survivor, Linbart Gallery, Shanghai
Ink-Well, Lelege Art, Beijing, China
2015 Early Works by Wang Chuan, Alisan Fine Arts, Hong Kong, China
Always Going Home: The Recent Paintings of Wang Chuan, PIFO Gallery, Beijing, China
2014 Wang Chuan - Grid, PIN Art, Beijing, China
2013 Locus - Wang Chuan Solo Exhibition, A Thousand Plateaus Art Space, Chengdu, China
2012 Wang Chuan’s Ink Painting Exhibition, Galerie 99 Aschaffenburg, Germany
The Elements of Chinese Ink Art: Wang Chuan Solo Exhibition , Shanghai Duolun Museum of Modern Art
2010 Wang Chuan's Oil Painting Exhibition, PIFO New Art Gallery, Beijing, China
2007 Wangchuan’s Oil Painting , the Courtyard Gallery, Beijing, China
2006 Waking of Graffiti - Wang Chuan’s New Oil Painting, OCT Contemporary Art Terminal, Shenzhen, China
Chinese Abstract (Oil Painting), Zhu Qizhan Museum of Art, Shanghai, China
Trace of Life - A Retrospective Exhibition of Art Paintings by Wang Chuan, He XiangNing Museum of Art, Shenzhen, China
2001 Diary of a Reflective Life - Wang Chuan’s Ink Paintings, Hanart T Z Gallery, Hong Kong
1999 Wang Chuan’s Ink Paintings, Alisan Fine Arts Gallery, Hongkong
Wang Chuan’s Ink Paintings, Shenzhen Fine Art Institute, Shenzhen, China
Wang Chuan’s Ink Paintings, Gallery 456, Soho, New York, USA
1990 Wang Chuan’s Ink Paintings, Hanart T Z Gallery, New York, USA
The Life Index, Hanart T Z Gallery, Hong Kong, China
The Life Index, Hanart T Z Gallery, Taiwan, China
Blackness - Wang Chuan’s Solo Exhibition, Shenzhen Museum, China
1988 Wang Chuan’s Ink Paintings, China Museum of Art, Beijing, China
Public Collections
British Museum, The United Kingdom
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art, USA
The Soar Foundation, San Francisco, USA
San Francisco Art Museum, USA
Hefner Gallery, USA
Ferrari Gallery, Italy
Ateneum Museum, Finland
Art Museum of HK, Hong Kong
Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre, Hong Kong
Art Asia Archive, Hong Kong
M+ Contemporary Art Museum, Hong Kong
Hanart TZ Gallery, Hong Kong
Alisan Fine Arts, Hong Kong
Ullens Center for Contemporary Art,Beijing, China
Shanghai Art Museum, China
Minsheng Art Museum, Shanghai,China
Liu Haisu Art Museum, Shanghai, China
Zhu Qizhan Art Museum, Shanghai, China
Long Museum, Shanghai, China
Shanghai Duolun Museum of Modern Art, China
Guangdong Art Museum, China
He Xiangning Art Museum, China
OCT Contemporary Art Terminal, China
Shenzhen Art Museum, China
Guan Shanyue Art Museum, Shenzhen, China
Shenzhen Fine Art Institute, China
Hu Bei Museum of Art, China
Selected Group Exhibitions
2018 Ink Worlds: Contemporary Chinese Painting from the Collection of Akiko Yamazaki and Jerry Yang, The Museum of fine
arts, Stanford University, USA
2017 The Polars: New Ink Wash Painting Series Exhibition, Autumn Water Space, Hong Kong
A Thousand Plateous: Exhibition for the Tenth Anniversary, A Thousand Plateaus Art Space, Chengdu
Bent and Straight: The logic of Abstract, Hi Art Center, Beijing
Boundless: Ongoing-Chinese Ink Art 2017, Art Museum of Sichuan Fine Arts Institute, Chongqing
Spring X Discovery, A Thousand Plateaus Art Space, Chengdu
2016 Since the Abstract – The Tour Research Exhibition of Abstract Art in China, Minsheng Art Museum, Shanghai
About Painting Too, OCAT, Xian
Retrace of the world, Renke Gallery, Hangzhou
Abstract China 2016, Mingyuan Art Museum, Shanghai
Annual Review Exhibition of China Contemporary Ink Painting 2015-2016, Today Art Museum, Beijing
Poetic Community, The Art Space of the Comprehensive Cultural Platform in the Bonded Area, Xiamen
Poétique – The 9th Annual Exhibition of Abstract Art, PIFO Gallery, Beijing
China Line – School Art Contemporary Research Exhibition, Epoch Art Museum, Wenzhou
The Research Exhibition of Abstract Art in China, Today Art Museum, Beijing
2015 Off the Beaten Track- Revisit Four Individual Cases of 1990s, A Thousand Plateaus Art Space, Chengdu, China
About Painting too, OCAT Xi’an, Xi’an, China
Inward —— The Eighth Exhibition of Chinese Abstract Art, PIFO Gallery, Beijing, China
Post-Calligraphy in Chinese Contemporary Art, Foundation for art and Culture Bonn, Berlin, Germany
2014 Living in Chengdu, Kuandu Museum of Fine Art, Taipei, China
COSMOS: Opening Exhibition of Shanghai 21st Century Minsheng Art Museum, Shanghai, China
“Original Home” An Exhibition of Contemporary Art, Jia pingwa Cultural Museum of Art, Xi’An, China
2014’-The Seventh Abstract Art Exhibition, PIFO Gallery, Beijing, China
Changing – Abstracts in China, Lelege Art Gallery, Beijing, China
Living in Chengdu, Chengdu Contemporary Art Museum, Sichuan, China
Hanart TZ Gallery 30years, Hanart TZ Gallery Hong Kong, China
Opening Ceremony of Long Museum West Bund, Shanghai, China