Shen Wei traverses cultural bridge
Versatile painter, dancer and director unites traditions from East and West to explore universal themes
The two exhibitions, named Shen Wei: Still/Moving, at the Katonah Museum of Art, show Shen's work primarily from his earlier Music and Movement, the Calligraphy Brush series, which is more abstract — exploring the flow of the body's inner qi energy, and the feeling of music and movement, through brush or body to the canvas. The work deeply relates to his own practice in dance and Chinese calligraphy.
Some of the paintings even have a code that can be scanned, so you can listen to the specific music that inspired him to create the painting.
The Pocantico Center of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund's selections focus on Shen's recent works, which portray the spiritual and the mind in abstract landscape, and share elements of traditional Chinese shanshui landscape painting.
"We are delighted to have this opportunity to collaborate with the Pocantico Center of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund," said Michelle Yun Mapplethorpe, director and chief curator of the Katonah Museum of Art. This exhibition and partnership have been many years in the making, and it feels like a natural fit, she said.
Beyond their shared interest in Shen's visual art, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and the Pocantico Center are also hosting Shen for a special dance residency, during which he is creating a new commissioned work for the American Dance Festival.
"We thought it would be the perfect opportunity to have a dual venue exhibition that really showcases the breadth of Shen Wei's artistic practice, both between visual art and performing art," said Mapplethorpe.
On display at the exhibition at the Pocantico Center of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, a non-profit organization housed on the Rockefeller Estate, Shen's new Suspension in Blue series (2017-2020), painted in acrylic, was inspired by a movement from his dance technique "natural body development".
The newest watercolor series, MindScape, from 2023, unfolds across the bright and high ceiling gallery. The Reflected Elements series of eight paintings was created while Shen spent much of his time in Paris during the COVID pandemic, where he developed a new technique with abstract natural forms in a golden glowing brown, inspired by Northern Song Dynasty (960-1127) landscape paintings.
