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Catalogue displaying the works from the Song Yige exhibition at Marlborough Fine Art, London
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SONG YIGECurated by Zeng Fanzhi
SONG YIGE
27 JANUARY – 27 FEBRUARY
SONG YIGECurated by Zeng Fanzhi
Marlborough Fine Art 6 Albemarle Street London W1S 4BY
+44 (0)20 7629 5161 [email protected] www.marlboroughlondon.com
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.
INTRODUCTIONby Zeng Fanzhi
MEMORY FOR THE FUTURE
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
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.
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.
Her Hands, 2015, 96 x 97 cm
Olympia, 2014, 154 x 138 cm
Lily Le Brun
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 green-
blue 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.
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, fence-
sitting, 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 non-
normal 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.
Dance Party, 2015, 180 x 203 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 Private Collection
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. Bread, 2014 103 x 98 cm Private Collection
LIST OF WORKS
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. 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. 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
BIOGRAPHY
1980 Born in Harbin, Hei Longjiang Province, China
2007 Graduated 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 EXHIBITIONS2014 “ 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 EXHIBITIONS2015 “ I AM BECAUSE OF YOU”,
YUANSPACE, Beijing
2013 Opening Exhibition, Zhong Gallery, Beijing
2013 “@WHAT”, ARKO, Seoul, Korea
2011 “ ARTMIA Living”, ARTMIA Gallery, Beijing
LondonMarlborough Fine Art (London) Ltd
6 Albemarle Street
London, W1S 4BY
Telephone: +44-(0)20-7629 5161
Telefax: +44-(0)20-7629 6338
www.marlboroughlondon.com
Marlborough Contemporary
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London, W1S 4BY
Telephone: +44-(0)20-7629 5161
Telefax: +44-(0)20-7629 6338
www.marlboroughlondon.com
New YorkMarlborough Gallery Inc.
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New York, N.Y. 10019
Telephone: +1-212-541 4900
Telefax: +1-212-541 4948
www.marlboroughgallery.com
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Telephone: +1-212-463 8634
Telefax: +1-212-463 9658
MadridGalería Marlborough SA
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Telephone: +34-91-319 1414
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Marlborough
Design: Shine Design, London Print: Impress Print Services
Catalogue No.:652 ISBN: 978-1-909707-25-2 © 2016 Marlborough
Marlborough
