Kaifan Wang was born in 1996 in Hohhot, China and currently lives and works in Berlin. Wang studied in Shanghai and Florence, before completing his Fine Arts education at the Universität der Künste in Berlin in 2022.
Elements of historical and cultural effacing and the dichotomy between the aggressive components with a gentler erosive act of erasure are key to the thematic and technical aspects of Wang’s painting practice. The gestural movements from which the layers of paint are composed upon the canvas are then left to dry and scratched from the surface, creating a process of removal that retains an echo of the previous action and colour. The compositions seem to wander and aim for an exterior position outside the limitation of the image and the dripping effects add to the fluidity of the historical references and aspects of time that mutates and abstracts.
The contradictions within the emotive gestures lead into a dialogue between the traditions of abstraction within Western and Chinese painterly techniques. In this regard, Wang is interested in the violent and dominant movements that have a prevalence within the western canon of abstract painting with bold colour fields applied as if with force. However, simultaneously the works possess an aqueous quality that feels bequeathed from the traditions of Chinese ink painting, with a flowing constitution moving through the dilution of colour across the strokes of paint. The integration of these aspects and the interrogation of the duality of their cultural signifiers and displacements, ultimately encapsulates the essence of Wang’s practice, through the tender exploration of both his own cultural identity and a wider interest in the manner through which we construct and erase ancestral histories.
The contradictions within the emotive gestures lead into a dialogue between the traditions of abstraction within Western and Chinese painterly techniques. In this regard, Wang is interested in the violent and dominant movements that have a prevalence within the western canon of abstract painting with bold colour fields applied as if with force. However, simultaneously the works possess an aqueous quality that feels bequeathed from the traditions of Chinese ink painting, with a flowing constitution moving through the dilution of colour across the strokes of paint. The integration of these aspects and the interrogation of the duality of their cultural signifiers and displacements, ultimately encapsulates the essence of Wang’s practice, through the tender exploration of both his own cultural identity and a wider interest in the manner through which we construct and erase ancestral histories.
Solo exhibitions of Wang include: 'Bull Washer' (solo), COMMUNE, Vienna; ‘Cross ventilation’ (solo), curated by Junyao Chen, Gene Gallery x Shanghai Art Week, Shanghai, 2023; ‘Is the spot on the neck bitten by mosquitoes?’ (solo), GNYP Gallery, Antwerp, Belgium, 2023; ‘Lunar Fountains’ (solo), Long Story Short LA, Los Angeles, 2023; ‘Whistling Dune’ (solo), GNYP Gallery, Berlin, 2022; ‘Mauerspechte’ (solo), HVB Kunst CUBE B2, Berlin, 2022. Selected group exhibitions include: ‘Border Crossing: Possibilities and Interactions’, curated by Wu Hung, Yuz Museum, Shanghai, 2023; ‘Briefly Gorgeous’, curated by Joan Tucker, Songwon Art Center, Seoul, 2023; ‘Inquiry to the Wall’, Seoul Art Center, Beijing, 2023.