For his first solo exhibition at the M97 Gallery in Shanghai, the photographer Shan Feiming selected three recent series in which he offers an ethereal vision of nature and reality.
Born in Zhejiang Province in 1978, Shan studied at the Beijing Central Academy of Fine Arts. Influenced by the films of Wim Wenders, he moved to Germany to study photography at the Brunswick Art Institute. Today he’s based in the city of Hangzhou, famous for West Lake, classified a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. So it comes as no surprise that Shan has developed a special relationship with nature
His series Waking from Hibernation (2012)—in Chinese, 惊蛰 or jīngzhé, literally “the awakening of insects—symbolizes the end of hibernation and the arrival of spring in March. Shot near a pond not far from his house in Hangzhou, the photographs in this series show the essence of untameable wilderness with its striking colors. “Seeing the same trees and landscapes every day, I started to perceive the changes of color with the changes of seasons and weather,” says Shan. At the time, the photographer was living through a time of transition, tangled and confused like his images of branches.
Continuing in the same vein, Jungle (2010-2013) is an immersion in a dense forest, dark, impenetrable, unwelcoming. This large installation consists of five panels of photographs shot over the course of several months during a trip to Yunnan, a region in Southern China bordering Vietnam, Laos and Burma.
More abstract and even more rooted in memory, his series Silent Distance (2012-2013) captures the fleetingness of the time. Shan was at a vigil in honor of his grandmother. His vision loses itself, searching for a light in the darkness, a little spark which would remind us of the cycle of life and death. With the camera in focus, he captures the intangible contours of rays of light, the flight of the moth attracted despite itself to the light that will end its life.
The metaphor for an uncertain future and formal research, the photographs of Shan show that the genre of landscape is being constantly renewed in contemporary Chinese photography.
EXHIBITION
Waking From Hibernation
Shan Feiming Solo Exhibition
From March 15th to May 11th, 2014
M97 Gallery
97 Moganshan Rd. 2F,
Shanghai 200060
China
