Lei Yan: Frozen Series and Camouflage Cloth-making

Lei Yan’s Solo exhibition 2007:Frozen Series and Camouflage Cloth-making

Exhibition duration:9 November-22 November,2007
Openning:9 November,8:00pm(Friday)
Curator:Luo Fei

For the first Solo Exhibition in the newly renovated TCG Nordica gallery, we proudly present the recent art works from Leiyan, one of our old friend, loft female artist.

Leiyan was born in 1950s, she cultivated a special life experiences in the army for 30 years. As a sensitive and exuberant creativity female artist. Rigid military life formed tension with her personality , naturally this period constructed the special resources and thoughts of art creation. There are army stuffs often appearing in her arts over and over again,as the uniforms, the badge, te Red star, even some events of histories. Interesting is that she got inspiration from army stuffs and history stories. But, meanwhile she didn’t stop pace from these Materials, Conversely, she prestige all of these stories, to recall the privacy and romantic Feelings and more broad daily emotions.

After she left the army, she trys to use new creation language in her arts. From Traditional Prints, oil painting, Transition to photos, videos, installations and handcrafts. She is not only a generalist in art styles and forms, but also in the topics that her focus on. Included: process of Urbanization, female identity, and throughout lei yan’s works from the early army career.

The exhibition will show Lei yan’s recent art works, it is also related to about her army career. the one group, she took photos about the fozen army stuffs in the ice, the other one is the conceptual works of handcrafts. it will be the surprise from her. All of these army stuffs, history events, and handcrafts, like as the treasures stored in somewhere of grandmother’s box under her bed. We can feel a female artist how to thoughtfulness from private to public.

written by: Luo Fei

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An Archaeological Tour of Revolutionary Romanticism and the Metaphor of Camouflage written by Luo Fei

Frozen Red

That was a memory of red, a memory of hotness and also a memory of youth.

In China, everyone who has ever lived in that time would be impressed by the frozen red. That was an age, an age had been frozen — for everyone, there could be only one faith, one idea and one dream — as pure as ice, and also as white as ice. The life though seemed to be simplified and repressed, everyone could have a stable life everyday. Since each one, living in that time, had one faith and one objective, and therefore the red then became hallowed.

However, when I watched the red under the ice, such a strange feeling, like a star far from the earth could not be reached, had rush into my mind. I’m not sure that was the illusion from the ice, or the result from a past age, but a feeling just told me, the red has left us, had left our life, had left the unfathomable age. All I have seen was the lack of faith, was the disappearance of trueness, was the lost and confusion of soul. How fast the time flies! The world has been more and more untraceable “someone has lost his ethic in the face of money, someone has dropped his honor in the face of fame, and also someone has abandoned his dream in the face of power ” the red was leaving us.

The frozen red, which would be better to consider as the protection to the past, as the thinking to dream and faith more than just frost to that time. I have a brief, we could review the past through the ice, and we also could seek for the red we ever had through the ice, because the red remain its brightness in my heart, because the age needs red!

Lei Yan
August 22, 2006

Artist Lei Yan’s CV

Exhibition Space:

Memory
by Tang Zhigang

I have known Lei Yan for several decades, ever since the time we worked together in the Kunming Military Region in the 1970s. I still remember that we spent a lot of time preparing for the art exhibitions in the army then.

Lei Yan made a series of prints, titled “We Have Lei Feng Everywhere”. It has been cited by many forms of media and been very influential. I was new in the army at that time and I felt so fortunate to receive tremendous help from Lei Yan – she was such a good and experienced teacher. It is a great honor for me.

Lei Yan served in the army from as early as the age of 14. She worked in a military hospital, a school and later in a research institution – she has been a soldier, a nurse, a scholar and researcher and also a military officer in various places. Even though she has had a range of careers, Lei Yan had always been greatly interested in art and especially paintings, leading her to produce a lot of art work which has been seen in many military inter art exhibitions. Lei Yan and I have had numerous discussions about art ever since she graduated from the China Military Fine Art College. In 1994, Lei Yan and I were invited by the Military Political Department to work together for the media art work titled, “The Pictures of an Era”, from which I found that she was no longer a soldier who only liked painting but an artist who had her own ideas and views on art. Because of her experience in printmaking, Lei Yan was more interested in printed material and was able to do a fine job. In 2001, with the completion of her new Loft in Kunming, Lei Yan retired from the military where she had served for more than 30 years and set up a studio in her Loft. Since then, Lei Yan has had more opportunities to communicate with foreign artists, institutions and art studios. She has recently finished a series of good pictures and set works, in which I found the theme “Memory” to have become her main focus in art.

We can have memories of certain people, of certain things, of sadness and happiness, of the happenings in our daily life and also of the nightmares we face in our lives. Because of the different personalities and life experiences, the memories arising from different people can be a very special element. In her time as an artist, Lei Yan used her memories of military service to express a special history of her life in the army – a story of a certain group of soldiers, a reflection of our nation and also a short biography of that time. The personal experience based on a period of national history, in other words, the memory that was created from that particular period of national history, became the fountain of Lei Yan’s art work, where she focused more on a human being’s soul, imagination, history and the future that we look towards.

The theme of “Memory” in Lei Yan’s latest work is one of the most valuable series of art done by a person born in the 1950s. I wish Lei Yan’s personal exhibition to be a roaring success!

Loft, Kunming, China
December 2nd 2006