LIANG YUANWEI

Having represented China at the Venice Biennale in 2011, Liang Yuanwei is back with a show, but outside the canonical venues of the art festival, that focuses on her process-based approach to making art. Titled Behind the Curtain (Dietro le Quinte), the exhibition, which runs until 18 June, is presented by the K11 Art Foundation and curated by Pompidou Centre curator Loïc Le Gall. Known for her large, intricate wall-mounted oil paintings and richly textured impasto canvases, Liang experiments with what could be called “female” materials—samples of clothing, curtains and cloth, whose patterns she painstakingly simulates in some of her most captivating works, and also lipstick, applied to create drawings of geometric precision. The results are visually stunning pieces driven by ideas about calm and chaos, transience and timelessness, romance and solitude. The show in Venice captures all that, presenting well recognised works from the artist along with new and unseen pieces. The title of the exhibition, both in English and Italian, alludes to the revelation of what is unseen for a moment on the theatre stage; the Chinese is a direct borrowing from the title of an exquisite Peking opera evoking the eternal themes of love, treason, and honour.