He Wei

Biography

I think that every expression of art is a representation of feelings and a container of vital energy. Colours, shapes and symbols, which seem to be randomly chosen, are linked to the unconscious and to my memories: the transport of this meaning is the reinterpretation of thoughts and experiences.
- He Wei

Born in 1987 in Anhui Province, China, he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence, then in Milan. In 2014 He Wei received the Laguna Prize at the Venice Arsenal.

Colours, shapes and symbols, which seem to be randomly chosen, are linked to the unconscious and to my memories: the transport of this meaning is the reinterpretation of thoughts and experiences. If the artwork is the 'personification' of thoughts and feelings, then what we see is only a way to interpret them, and the different gestures presented in his works represent the most direct, simple and impulsive communication. This kind of communication has an effect outside concept of values like what is right or wrong.

The artist’s research, dedicated to the investigation of shapes, forms and colors, goes from the beauty to the ugliness, from certainty to doubt, from exteriority to interiority. In recent works, the investigation of an emotional turmoil is particularly accentuated, and it is expressed in a very rhythmic and pulsing language. The signs, shapes, scratches and scribbles. All intertwined between the realistic- figurative compositions of anonymous bodies and the abstract chromatic inserts that force us to go beyond the real figure of the visible.

He Wei is a methodical and thoughtful artist, who carefully observes the world around him. He develops virtual sketches, following a well-detailed creative scheme, where everything becomes a calculated fruit of his mind. In particular, a recent series of abstract sculptures reflect this vision and approach. The works are the result of He Wei’s long research on balance and formal perfection, physicality of the work as well as craftsmanship and art. The concepts that once were contemplated by the theorists of neoplasticism, minimalists or the founders of the Bauhaus School. These enigmatic structures reflect the aesthetic vision of He Wei which finds application both in the field of sculpture and that of painting.

In his recent paintings, He Wei analyses and dismantles the portrait, to create a stronger and more violent perception compared to his previous canvases, characterized by the cancelation of the face through graffiti or coloured geometric shapes. The result of the new portraits is truly fascinating thanks to the use of very strong and incisive colours and studied and skilful oil spots and brushstrokes.

The artist has assigned titles of psychotropic drugs to the works, giving them a curative function (they are medicines of distorted reality) and at the same time they are representation of contemporaneity, in need of rebalance the excess of psychosis and schizophrenia through drugs. In this whirling sensation of confusion and instability, the spectator is brought straight into this art of transition, towards future forms.

Among his exhibitions, "Portraits" (2021), "Hate you, Love you, Fuck you" (2020), "Lost in a Nurse's Dream" (2017), "A Matter of Life and Death" (2015), "The Second Anhui Oil Art Exhibition" (2008) followed by "Zeitgeist" (2012) and "The Second Anhui Oil Art Exhibition"(2008). He currently lives and works between Italy and China.

Exhibitions

Works

Solo & Group Show

He Wei CV

Born 1987 in Anhui province, China

EDUCATION

2005
Anhui University, Anhui China 2008
Fine Art Academy, Florence 2012
Brera Fine Art Academy, Milan

EXHIBITIONS

2021
He Wei Portraits, Primo Marella Gallery, Lugano, Switzerland
2020
Hate you, Love you, Fuck you, Primo Marella Gallery, Milan, Italy
2019
Meccaniche Della Meraviglia: He Wei, Solo Exhibition MO.CA Brescia Italy 2018
Undertow, Primae Noctis Art Gallery, Lugano, Switzerland
2017
Lost into a Nurse’s Dream, Primo Marella Gallery, Milan, Italy
Destination Asia, Now, Primae Noctis Art Gallery, Lugano, Switzerland Artissima, Special project, Turin, Italy
Asia Now, Special project, Paris, France
2015
He Wei’s solo show, Prime Noctis Art Gallery, Lugano, Switzerland
2014
Laguna Award, Arsenale di Venezia, Venice, Italy
2012
Zeitgeist, Rugu Zhai Gallery, Beijing, China
2011
Academy on show, EX3 Contemporary Art Centre, Florence, Italy
2008
The Second Anhui Oil Art Exhibition, Anhui, China