The China Ireland exhibition opened at Museu&m, Bangsongyuan road, Huangpu, Shanghai on November 29^th.

Irish Consul General in Shanghai Therese Healy spoke at the opening event on Friday evening and introduced the work of the five Irish artists.

Also speaking at the event was Sun Liping of the Shanghai International Culture Association. Ms Sun Li Ping wore an Aran sweater for the special occasion .

The event marks the 40^th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the two countries. The exhibition was produced by Wen Xu of Creative Culture Innovation Europe and curated by Lulu.

In an essay for a group exhibition earlier this year ‘Odyssey – the Return’ renowned curator Huang Du wrote on my portrait work : “ Each piece of work is a combination of the artist’s lived experience, her brush painting and materiality bound together using technological pre-sets. She combines the artistic language of painting with today’s lived experience in order to create a unique and personal visual language.”

“This series of portraits embodies a range of experiences in its dynamic fragmentation, insubstantial images which evoke time, space, identity and memory. This fastidious way of painting is not merely a type of formal innovation, the creative process itself causes an actual disintegration of the painting’s subjectivity and internalizes this metaphysical rupture. In bringing together the perception of image and that of memory, a new image narrative which redefines the portrait, is created。”

“At the same time, the artist has endeavoured to transform the act of painting, distancing herself from the pursuit of the classical, while at the same time incorporating photographic elements. So, the cropped image instantly establishes the connection between the subject and the experience/awareness of language. She uses alternative painting methods to deconstruct the existing rules of artistic creation and establishes a real intersection of two creative worlds: the visual and the literary.”

Huang Du , February 2019

A sincere thank you to all involved in making this event possible: Shanghai International Cultural Association, Creative Culture Innovation Europe , Irish Consulate in Shanghai and Museu&m art space.

The next blog will take a look at the artworks by participating artists.