GR Gallery is pleased to announce Vitamins 4 your Soul and The Fire Is Burning in my Heart, two concurrent solo exhibitions featuring artists David Von Bahr and Weiyang Gao. The shows will reveal, for the first time in a public exhibition, the latest series of artworks that the artists have been working on for the past months. These two separate new bodies of work will independently invade the gallery space, contrasting and counterbalancing each other in an ideal conversation that will blur the boundaries of abstraction and figuration. The shows will put together a total of sixteen paintings on canvas in various sizes.
David Von Bahr's upcoming exhibition, "Vitamins 4 your Soul," marks the evolution of his signature abstract organic style, aiming to present a collection that offers a more explicit glimpse into characters and figurative references within each composition. Through the use of stylized smiling faces and striking visual contrasts, Von Bahr employs an ironic metaphor, reflecting on the current state of the contemporary art market and exploring the vast possibilities within the vocabulary of abstraction.
Central to Von Bahr's artistic process is his self-described "dance" with the canvas, enabled by its sheer size, which allows him to move around freely and engage fully with the creation process. This emphasis on movement extends beyond mere physicality; it is reflected in his choice of mediums and motifs as well. Von Bahr's confrontational style strikes a balance between control and uninhibited expression, resulting in works that possess both boundary and restraint and a sense of release.
Inspired by hyper-magnified interpretations of everyday objects and figures, each of Von Bahr's work is meticulously crafted in his studio in southern Stockholm. Eschewing drafts or outlines in favor of improvisation and instinct, his process is characterized by bluntness and a direct approach to creation. In transcending traditional art norms, Von Bahr's art celebrates raw emotions and vivid storytelling, rooted in the cultural milieu of Stockholm. His canvases serve as silent witnesses to his life's tales, capturing them through audacious fusion of colors and patterns. Employing an automatic, random intuitive approach, Von Bahr's paintings are built upon a leitmotif that embodies spontaneity and authenticity.
Weiyang Gao’s new series embodies a journey through space-time, where ethereality meets order, expressing our desire for liberty within imposed frameworks. Each piece is an adventure, capturing universal rhythms and human emotions. The deliberate placement of hand-painted patterns against cosmic flows illustrates his search for balance between freedom and societal constraints. Color is his medium for conveying the universe's vibrancy, quantum field's possibilities, and the depths of his feelings. In ‘The Fire Is Burning in my Heart’ every canvas invites viewers to contemplate their role in the grand expanse of the cosmos, simultaneously significant and minute. His aim is to inspire awe and introspection, connecting the mystical with the everyday, and the fleeting with the everlasting. Wei’s paintings blur the categories of figuration and abstraction.
During his creating process, he reduces the human figure into its most basic forms, then repeats the figure over and over again until the individual is lost in a collective pattern. He uses this visual language to bring his insight into the many ways people have used and abused culture and history to create barriers and divisions within the broader spectrum of humanity. Within his paintings, executed with a mix of inks, acrylic and oil, he addresses the feelings of being oppressed by those barriers and aims to find a place that transcends culture and history; he builds imagery of sacred spaces, devoid of specific religious or spiritual demarcations, in order to allow all audiences a place for spiritual and meditative contemplation. He is creating a new system of symbolism within his works in effort to reconnect his audience with the ineffable source of all spirituality, outside of specific cultural or temporal paradigms.