Guan Wei (expired event)

Turner Galleries is honoured to present the exhibition Retrospection by the celebrated Chinese / Australian artist Guan Wei.

Guan Wei was born in 1957, in Beijing, a descendant of Manchu nobility under the Qing Dynasty.  He graduated in 1986 from the Department of Fine Arts at Beijing’s Capital University, and began work as a high school teacher.  He first visited Australia in early 1989 to undertake a two-month residency at the Tasmanian School of Art.  He returned home to witness the atrocities of Tiananmen Square and painted his most political work to that date, Two finger exercises, in which his irresistible and exuberant plump figures extend two fingers in a V-for-victory sign.

The Tasmanian School of Art invited Guan Wei back to Australia in 1990 and he applied for permanent residence under the Distinguished Talent Scheme.  Guan Wei’s wife Liu Pin joined him in 1992 and in 1993 he was granted Australian residency. 

His colour palette began to reflect the strong colours of Australia, his forms became increasingly graphic and simplified, and Australian animals and western icons were incorporated into his search for a unique visual language that would combine his Chinese cultural background with his new home.  Environmental, political and scientific themes pertinent to Australia also emerged.

Guan Wei has won many awards, including the 2015 Arthur Guy Memorial Painting Prize, Bendigo Art Gallery, 2002 Sulamn Prize, Art Gallery of New South Wales, and was selected for the pretiigious 2009 Clemenger Contemprary Art Award, National Gallery of Victoria.  He has held numerous solo exhibitions in Australia and internationally.

Retrospection is an exhibition of three bodies of work, from 2013 to 2016,that encapsulate his distinctive graphic style.