Whitney Bedford, Jin Jiangbo, John Reynolds | Art Beijing 2010

Starkwhite is pleased to present a exhibition of new work by Whitney Bedford (Los Angeles USA), Jin Jiangbo (Shanghai CN) and John Reynolds (Auckland NZ) at Art Beijing from 29 April to 2 May 2010.

Whitney Bedford

The personal and the historical intertwine in Whitney Bedford’s work. Her subjects include Arcadian landscapes, shipwrecks, icebergs and migrating birds acting both as a personal map and as a metaphor for contemporary life in uncertain, chaotic times. Drafted in ink and lost in the overpainting, the images come from academia painting, personal photos and image searches. Conceptually the artist says she likes the paint to sink the images. The paintings become their own act, something foreboding or redeeming or cathartic; less about trials and tribulations, they ultimately become their own votives.

Whitney Bedford received her MFA at the University of California, Los Angeles in 2003. She was the winner of the 2001 UCLA Hammer Museum Drawing Biennale and received a Fulbright Graduate Fellowship from Hoschule der Kuenste, Berlin. Exhibitions include: Houdini: Art and Magic 1919-1949, The Jewish Museum, New York (2010); This is Killing Me at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, North Adams (2009); X – Snow Falls in the Mountains, St Pauls St Gallery, Auckland University of Technology (2007); Step into Liquid, Museum of Contemporary Art Denver (2006); The Triumph of Painting, part 5 Which Reality? The Saatchi Gallery London (2005); CUT, Susan Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects, Los Angeles (2005), among others. Whitney Bedford has had solo exhibitions at Susan Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects, Los Angeles; Cherrydelosreyes Gallery, Los Angeles; D’Amelio Terras Gallery, New York and at Art Concept, Paris.

Jin Jiangbo

In his recent series of photographs Jiangbo investigates the past twenty years of economic, social and cultural upheaval that has taken place in China since 1989. Against a backdrop of worldwide economic malaise, Jin Jiangbo presents his photographic works as gestures of archaeological and economic investigation undertaken since 2007. He says: “My process enters a space of expressionless aesthetic research. Within the long process of history, things and people shuttle through, and as time passes by they gradually disappear and are lost leaving only the buildings and spaces as witnesses to history.”

Leaving his familiar mode of new media technologies and taking up the historic process of analogue photography, images are shot using the bare technique of a medium format panoramic camera and then digitally manipulated into large format panoramas. Using series titled Prospects of the Chinese Market, The Great Economic Retreat: The Dongguan Scene, and Shanghai, Shanghai Engine Plan; Jiangbo’s arresting panoramas offer an immediate and urgent response to the unique socialist economic landscape of China as it negotiates within wider frames of globalisation, integration and recession.

Based in Shanghai and Beijing, Jin Jiangbo is one of China’s foremost recent generation of media artists. He was born in 1972 in Zhejiang province. He is director of Digital Arts at Shanghai University and is completing his PhD at Tsinghua University in Beijing. Recent exhibitions include: Never Equal Distance to the Moon: Power, Politics, and the Environment, Faureschou Copenhagen, Denmark (2009/2010); China in Four Seasons: Jin Jiangbo, Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, New Plymouth, New Zealand (2009); Booming, Wall Art Museum, Beijing and Shanghai Gallery of Art, China (2008); 3rd Nanjing Triennial, China (2008); Remote/Control, MOCA – Museum of Contemporary Art, Shanghai, China (2007); Shanghai Surprise, Lothringer 13 – Stadische Kunsthalle Munchen, Munich, Germany (2005); and Venice Biennale, Italy (2003).

John Reynolds

At Art Beijing Starkwhite will present a new work created during a residency, organized by the art fair. Titled The Art of War it will utilise small readymade canvas blocks, with text in English and Chinese, attached to flat wooden poles, which will lean against the booth wall.

John Reynolds lives and works in Auckland, New Zealand. Over the past three decades he has established a reputation as a painter who employs aspects of drawing (sketches, plans, charts, doodles) and different types of representation (expressive marks, symbols, patterns, writing) for poetic effect. Not content to be pigeonholed as a painter, he also incorporates sculpture, installation and site-specific outdoor works into his practice. These include Cordyline commissioned by Alan Gibbs for The Farm, Kaipara and Snow Tussock and Golden Spaniard commissioned by Oceana Gold for a heritage and art park in East Otago. He is also recognised for the diversity of his practice and ability to work in a variety of scenes such as – architecture (with Nicolas Stevens), fashion (with Workshop, World and Karen Walker), music and publishing (record, book and magazine covers) and television (Questions for Mr Reynolds documentary with Shirley Horrocks and Works End with Chris Knox for Art Land). Reynolds is also the recipient of a Laureate Award from the Arts Foundation of New Zealand, which he used with collaborator Arch MacDonnell to produce CERTAIN WORDS DRAWN, a book that celebrates the range of his work with writing by 12 contributors.

Solo shows and representation in recent events and group exhibitions include: Dorothy Napangardi / John Reynolds, curated by Robert Leonard, Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane (2009); Walters Prize Exhibition, Auckland Art Gallery (2008); John Reynolds: Under Milk Wood by Dylan Thomas, a collaboration between the artist and actor/director Geraldine Brophy, Christchurch Art Gallery (2008); Speaking Truth to Power, Gus Fisher Gallery, Auckland University (2007); Zones of Conflict, 15th Biennale of Sydney (his work Cloud was commissioned for the entrance hall of the Art Gallery of New South Wales), curated by Charles Merewether (2006); 54321: Auckland Artists Projects, curated by Ngahiraka Mason, Auckland Art Gallery (2006); Nine Lives: The Chartwell Collection, curated by Robert Leonard, Auckland Art Gallery (2003); HEVN: NOT TO SCALE, curated by Sophie McIntyre, Adam Gallery Victoria University, Wellington (2002): and From K Road to Kingdom Come, curated by Gregory Burke and Robert Leonard, Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, New Plymouth (2001).