GUO PEIYU
Contemporary artist, born in Shishi, Quanzhou, in 1962.
He enrolled at Shanghai Theatre Academy on stage design in 1981, studied with famous contemporary artist Cai Guoqiang under Professor Zhou Benyi. After graduating from STA, he got a job in Xiamen TV Station and shot a documentary named “Journey to Quanzhou”.
He studied and settled in Japan in 1989. During that time, he created a lot of paintings and photographs. His exhibitions attract various publications and TV stations, such as People’s Daily, The Wall Street Journal, Asahi Shimbun, China Youth Daily, Wen Wei Po and Yazhou Zhoukan. Especially NHK WORLD TV, chūkyō television broadcasting, Nagoya Broadcasting Network Co and TV TOKYO Corporation interviewed him and created short documentaries for reporting.
Guo’s works are heavy, large but smooth. His styles are alike with Cezanne’s. He manages to manifest a concise way of the whole paintings, which encourages the audience to have their own imaginations. He depicts real objects in the unreal and it also reflects the spirits in traditional Chinese art. Guo’s purpose is to pursue genuineness of the charm in dancing instead of mimicking models in life. His ideas of emphasizing inner parts of the world are the same as Paul Cézanne’s. All his own creation is mixed with contemporary elements from both eastern and western culture, expressed in a concise way. He uses his proficiencies in photography to redefine Chinese colorful paintings with Charlie Chaplin, a significant label of the early 1900s. It is provoking that he uses Chaplin’s humors to reflect the development of materialistic society and impetuous attitudes toward everything. Guo applies new colors to Charlie Chaplin’s image in order to demonstrate the value of reconsidering the issues at that time.
Totem. As a symbol of spirits, totem is one of the oldest art expressions. Guo’s Sancai, a versatile type of decoration on Chinese pottery mainly using three colors–brown, green, and a creamy off-white, is inspired by the sculpture in historical museum. He set sancai away from the ancient background while creating his art work. Instead, he analyzes how sancai was made up of upon his own experiences. He also painted borders to emphasize sancai’s posture, which is like yelling out soundlessly. This is his sentiments towards social development within a decade.
Charlie Chaplin. Chaplin reflected and critiqued the society through his outstanding comedies in order to trigger people’s resonance in their hearts. Guo applies different colors to Chaplin’s humorous image so as to indicate the contemporary values of the problems brought out at that time.
Worker-peasant-soldier. Worker-peasant-soldier is a synonym of a special time in Chinese history. Soldier in this word means Chinese Red Army and it is unique in Chinese history. The symbols of Worker-peasant-soldier and students were printed on various products’ trademarks, especially on third series of CNY. Third series of CNY were officially issued from April, 1962 and gradually disappeared from people’s lives until 2000 after circulating in market of 38 years. This group of work based on the theme of Worker-peasant-soldier is Guo’s reconsideration to those times. He reestablishes the image of Worker-peasant-soldier with contemporary elements in contrast of the original ones. The contrasts are as intense as liquors.
