Duration: January 12 – April 2 (Held Over), 2019
Opening Reception: January 12, 2019, Saturday at 3pm
Venue: Canton-sardine
Address: 268 Keefer street, #071 at Lower-ground (LG), Vancouver
Curator: Steven Dragonn
Sat. Jan 12 – Opening Reception
Sat. Jan 26 – Artist Talk
Sat. Feb 9 – Art & Tea Party
Sat. Mar 22 – Exhibition Wrap-up Dance Party
Tue. Apr 4 – Last Day of the Show (Held Over)
Canton-sardine is pleased to invite Lam Wong, Vancouver based artist to show his paintings related with his recent thinking on conceptual art. As he described himself “My art practice is a life long journey of spiritual exploration and discoveries. For me, painting is a vehicle for investigating the mind. I am interested in challenging the received notion of perception: how we construct meaning, the working of memory, and how human consciousness relates to the world. I want to create a discourse about the human condition, and make paintings that engage viewers in questioning existence, and finding freedom.”
This time, he is showing his newer series of paintings, which meets Chinese Traditional Buddhism mind set featuring the occidental abstractionism and minimalism. The Transitional 2×4 series was formed with a realization of a single thought – “Everything and every situation happens only once.” Lam explain that all experience is unique, which is a quiet contemplation on time and impermanence. The frame of each painting symbolizes Nowness, and the content (the walking figures inside the frame) depict the movement in time – an expression of Impermanence in all forms and colours. Like an ever-flowing river, the walking figures seem to transition into other frames in a mysterious way. “I like the idea of my paintings having conversations with each other.” Lam says.
Lam Wong was born in 1968, to an artistic family (calligrapher father and pianist mother) in Xiamen, China, grew up in Hong Kong during the 1980s and immigrated to Canada at the age of 19. Lam studied design, art history and painting, both in Alberta and British Columbia. He is currently practicing painting as his main medium. Lam sees art making as an on-going spiritual practice. His main subjects are the perception of reality, the meaning of art, and the relationships between time, memory and space. Lam lives and works in Vancouver since 1998.
Lam’s newer paintings are very often inspired by his older works. The idea of the undercover hidden paintings and the pairing of two paintings on each panel may come from a large diptych called Westcoast (MOA) 2008, which feature two Buddhist monks on the left panel and a same-sex couple on the right. The setting was the Museum of Anthropology at UBC in Vancouver. The aesthetics of this new series, upon revisiting them after completion, feels like a subconscious extension of two of Lam’s earlier paintings titled 1964 The Poignancy of Music, and 1964 The Poignancy of Poetry, set in Mark Rothko’s studio in Soho, NYC which he painted between 2010 to 2012. They are the projected ideal of how painting should be made, and what should be felt.
This exhibition which curated by Steven Dragonn and supported by Shang Foundation for Art, will be open to the public from January 12 to March 23, 2019. An artist talk will be hosted on Jan 26th at 3pm, an Tea & Art gathering on Feburary 16th at 3pm and A Closing music party will be on March 23rd at 3pm during the whole exhibition period.
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《王藝林：意念轉換》
展覽時間：2019年1月12日至3月23日
開幕時間：2019年1月12日，週六下午3點
展览地點：沙甸鹹水埠
展览地址：溫哥華 唐人街奇化街268號新華中心地下一層071單元
策 展 人：龍邃洋
沙甸鹹水埠很榮幸地邀請到溫哥華本地藝術家王藝林展示他在概念藝術上的近期思考成果。正如他所描述的那樣：“我的藝術實踐是終生的精神探索和發現之旅。對我來說，繪畫是心靈探索的工具。我有興趣從不同的角度來探尋已知的世界接受，譬如我們如何構建價值觀、如何建構記憶的工作，以及人類意識如何與世界聯繫。我想創造一種關於人類狀況的語境，並通過我的作品讓觀眾接受質疑的存在和尋找內心的自由。“
這一次，他所展示他新近創作的系列繪畫，揉合了中國傳統佛教思想以及西方的抽象主義和極簡主義。 《Transitional 2×4》系列是基於實施一個單一想法而形成的“一切都祇會發生一次”。王解釋道，所有經驗都是獨一無二的，這是一種對時間和無常的沉思。每幅畫的框架都象徵著“現在”，內容（框架內的行走人物）描繪了時間的運動—— 一種表現各種形式和顏色的無常。就像一條不斷流淌的河流，行走的人物似乎以神秘的方式過渡到其他框架。 “我喜歡我的畫作彼此交談的想法。”王說。
王藝林1968年出生於中國廈門的一個藝術家庭（父親是書法家，母親是鋼琴家），20世紀80年代在香港長大。19歲時移民到加拿大。王藝林曾在艾伯塔省和不列顛哥倫比亞省攻讀設計，藝術史和繪畫。自1998年起在溫哥華生活和工作的他，目前正以繪畫為主要的創作媒介。 他認為藝術創作是一種持續的精神實踐。他專注於探索現實的感知，藝術的意義，以及時間，記憶和空間之間的關係。
王藝林的新作品經常受到他的舊作品的啟發。秘密隱藏的繪畫和每個面板上兩幅畫配對的想法很可能來自他名為《Westcoast（MOA）2008》的大型雙聯畫，左側有兩個佛教僧侶，右邊是同性伴侶，環境則是溫哥華UBC的人類學博物館。這個新系列的美學，在完成後重新審視時，王藝林自己感覺就像他另外兩幅早年繪畫潛意識的延伸：題為《1964年的音樂》和《1964年的詩歌》（這組畫描繪的是紐約蘇豪Mark Rothko的工作室）王繪製於2010年至2012年之間， 這兩幅作品恰如其分地表達了畫（視覺外的感知）是應該如何產生的，以及畫面應所傳達出的。
本次展覽由龍邃洋策劃，並得到尚·藝術基金會的大力支持，將於2019年1月12日至3月23日向公眾開放。展覽期間的一系列活動包括：1月26日下午3點舉行的藝術家講座，2月16日下午3點的茶藝會，以及最後一天3月23日下午3點的閉幕式音樂派對。
CANTON-SARDINE 