Fu Site — Politicians — Paris-Beijing Gallery — Exhibition — Slash Paris

Past: September 11 → October 18, 2014

Realized between 2013 and 2014, the series Politicians is his most recent. It evokes the complexity — and even the cruelty — of contemporary debates and political battles, creating scenes in which evanescent male figures argue, discuss or simply find themselves in strange situations. Behind the curtains of a waiting room, between the veils of a canopy or in the reflection of a pool, troubling scenes emerge, as if insidious truths were hiding under an apparent calm.

Site Fu’s canvases seem to superimpose the layers and time of the narrative, introducing a psychological dimension to the space. Hallucinatory visions rear up in the immobile décor like traces or snippets of memories or fantastical presences. A perfectly mastered use of mixed media — China ink, pencil and oils — allows Site Fu to play with the spatial layers to introduce a blurred temporality.

This young Chinese painter’s references range from Goya to Francis Bacon to romantic painting. In his works, we find a fascination for shadows, allegories, fantasy and the unconscious. The disequilibrium in the composition and framing, the very dark color palette with nuances of ochre and grey and the tortured figures bent into the texture of the canvas evoke these artistic references.

Site Fu also loves cinema: he admires David Lynch and says he’s very influenced by the “seventh art”. He composes his paintings with a pronounced taste for mises en scène, making use of framing techniques borrowed from cinema such as freeze frames. The moments are therefore fixed on the canvas, creating a feeling of expectation as if they were suspense-filled fragments from a film.

Site Fu was born in Liaoning (China) in 1984. He earned his diploma from the University of Tsinghua/Beijing (2006) and the Versailles School of Fine Arts (2011). This young and talented painter has won numerous prizes and awards, including the Canson Prize in 2013. His work has been shown in solo and group exhibitions in China and France, where he lives and works today.