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We will present for you an art series of flowers by Chinese artist Du Lei. This is the artist’s first time sales exhibition in Norway.

Du Lei was born in Chongqing, China. After finishing her university art major, she went to work in a printing factory. Her oil paintings in the early years had a remarkable expressionist style, which showed the living conditions of normal workers, men and women who were working in the factories. Later, she started the creation of more interesting and small works, more focusing on cities, swimming pools, streets, and the images of characters into the social landscape, more like fragments of some stories, but also with more humorous and comic expressions.

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In the past three years, Du Lei has started to create still life subjects. This series is one of three themes created by this artist over the years. It was not a sudden thought, but just a branch of her concerns. This is undoubtedly related to her personal life and environment. Chongqing is a humid city with gloomy colors. There are small-leaved banyan trees and evergreen shrubs that adapt to this town, and mushrooms grow out of her painting room from time to time. Her favorite flowers are placed in the room all year round. These flowers and plants entered her paintings and became the protagonists of painting that she paid most attention to. The expressionist approach is still the painter's way of enamouring, but with restraint.

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I appreciate the certain independence of the artist in her floral series. This is the independence of thinking, no longer afraid the only standard that is focused on  techniques, but focus more on personal emotions and pure dialogue with flowers. Her art has gradually shifted from the secular level of attention to the inner level of self-contemplation.

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Another independence is that the artist Du is forming her own a mature artistic language. Such as the color system, rich layers of warm green and subtle variety in gray. The shape of the object loosens and deforms according to artist’s emotion and imagination, which is close to an abstract shape.

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Du Lei is also an independent female artist. This is a type that has gradually emerged in contemporary China. She spends most of her time creating in the studio and in the nature. She has never relied on official funding for the economy, and gradually formed her own collection group by selling her works.

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Her online exhibition and sales open today until November 2021. I hope you pay attention to this artist and enter her art online page to find your favorite artworks!

 

Xia Hua 

Curator, Gallery F48