Cui Jie
Cui Jie creates paintings that, by incorporating diverse real and fantasy layers, explore the heterogeneous perspectives in various fields and geopolitical contexts. She meticulously deals with each sculptural and architectural layer, and represents the process through which the modern world has undergone enormous and monumental changes. Delicate and calm, gentle and emotionally charged, Cui’s landscape and interior paintings present comparative studies of cities and urban environments. For the artist, the cities she depicts are closely associated with her personal history: one can identify in the subject matter Bauhaus architectural principles, ideologies of Chinese propaganda art, Soviet communist aesthetics, or the Japanese Metabolism architectural movement, among others. In rendering specific cities, architectures, structures and landscapes, Cui explores the embedded histories of perspectives, and shrewdly proposes the political meanings of distance, angles and time.
Recent solo exhibitions include: Species as Gifts, West Bund, Shanghai, China (2023): Thermal Landscapes, Pilar Corrias, London, UK (2023); New Model Village, Focal Point Gallery, Southend-on-Sea (2022); Cui Jie: From Pavilion to Space Station, Centre for Chinese Contemporary Art, Manchester (2019-20); The Peak Tower, Pilar Corrias, London (2019); To Make a Good Chair, Antenna Space, Shanghai (2019); The Enormous Space, OCAT Contemporary Art Terminal, Shenzhen (2018); Latter, Former, mother’s tankstation, Dublin (2016); and Cui Jie, START Gallery, Jaffa (2015). Her work has been included in recent group shows such as Une nouvelle génération d'artistes Chine, Centre Pompidou, Paris, France (2024); New Model Village, Focal Point Gallery, Southend-on-Sea (2022); 12th Taipei Biennial, Taipei (2020); Para Site, Hong Kong (2019); Guangdong Time Museum, Guangdong (2018); MoMa PS1, New York (2017); Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing (2017); Metro Pictures, New York (2017); Cass Sculpture Foundation, Sussex (2016); K11, Hong Kong and Shanghai (2016); Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing (2015); Tampa Museum of Art, Florida (2014); Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg (2014); Oklahoma City Museum of Art (2014); Tianhong Mei Heyuan Arts Center, Hangzhou (2013); and Minsheng Art Museum, Shanghai (2012).