He Wei

Born in 1987 in the province of Anhui (eastern China), He Wei undertook his first artistic studies in China, then moved to Italy and attended the prestigious Brera Academy of Fine Arts first in Florence and then in Milan, where he came into contact with a totally new existential dimension, destined to mark his artistic language in depth. Colours, shapes and symbols, seemingly chosen randomly, are actually linked to the artist's unconscious and experiences. His works refer to Western icons of which excerpts of faces and bodies are portrayed, mainly in black and white, to which chromatic inserts are applied, a symbol of that tumult of instinct and that chaotic and turbulent set of impulses of Being. The result is a photo-realistic painting that combines with phases of abstraction, which see shades of colours lost in the rigour of vertical lines and square shapes. The artist's research, dedicated to the investigation of shapes and colours, ranges from beautiful to ugly, from certainty to doubt, from exteriority to interiority. In recent works, the investigation of an emotional turmoil is particularly accentuated, and is expressed with a very rhythmic and pulsating language. The marks, shapes, scratches and scribbles. All intertwined between the realistic-figurative compositions of anonymous bodies and the abstract chromatic inserts that force us to go beyond the real figure of the visible. He Wei is a methodical and thoughtful artist, who carefully observes the world around him. He develops virtual sketches, following a very detailed creative scheme, where everything becomes the calculated fruit of his mind. In particular, a recent series of abstract sculptures reflects this vision and approach. The works are the result of He Wei's long research on balance and formal perfection, on the physicality of the work as well as on craftsmanship and art. The concepts that were once contemplated by the theorists of neoplasticism, by the minimalists or by the founders of the Bauhaus School. These enigmatic structures reflect He Wei's aesthetic vision that finds application both in the field of sculpture than in that of painting. In his recent paintings, He Wei analyzes and disassembles the portrait, to create a stronger and more violent perception than his previous canvases, characterized by the erasure of the face through graffiti or colored geometric shapes. The result of the new portraits is truly fascinating thanks to the use of very strong and incisive colours and carefully studied and skilful oil stains and brushstrokes. In 2014 he received the Laguna Prize at the Venice Arsenal. Among his exhibitions are "Portraits" (2021) "Hate you, Love you, Fuck you" (2020), "Lost into a Nurse's Dream" (2017), "A Matter of Life and Death" (2015) "The Second Anhui Oil Art Exhibition" (2008) followed by "Zeitgeist" (2012) and "The Second Anhui Oil Art Exhibition" (2008). He currently lives and works between Italy and China.