Zootopia 2nd | Group Exhibition

Exhibition Period: 12 Jan – 31 Jan 2021

Adam Karipidis

Adam was born in Melbourne and raised in St Kilda during the suburb’s bohemian years where punk and other sub cultures thrived in the 70’s and early 80’s.

Mainstream Australia was not where Adam wanted to be. When he turned 20, with little money and belongings, he said good bye to family, friends and football and moved to the USA. His love of music turned into a love for literature and he began immersing himself into the art scene, devouring books of fiction, visual art, biographies, and lived the life of an artist, writing novels and exhibiting his paintings in galleries and cafes across Los Angeles and New Orleans.

Adam has been painting obsessively for the past 3 years after a long hiatus. He has come to the realization that through his paintings, he is able to express his philosophies and ideas on nature and technology – how the two can join in unison and create harmony for future generations.

Adam is also concerned with the state of Man and his use of “Feelings” and “Thoughts” in relation to the rapid advancement of technology, believing “Feelings” and “Thoughts”  should be used equally like scales that need to be balanced.

The random, free flowing paint on Adam’s paintings represent “Feelings” and the structured designs represent “Thoughts” that shows how harmony can be achieved when two different forces work together.

Adam uses acrylic, oil and enamel, sometimes on the one canvas, depending on mood, the time of season and the climate. Some of his paintings are the result of the Australian 40 degree sun baking the paint onto the canvas almost instantly. 

---

Banana Wang

Wang Banana was born in Shanghai in 1990. She graduated from the Shanghai Fudan School of Visual Arts in 2014 and major in sculpture. The style of her works of art is dynamic and cheerful. She is good at utilizing strong colors which is impressive. Using the techniques ICON French Bulldog was liked by many people, and some well-known art exhibitions exhibited her artworks. The most famous artwork is a series of French Bulldog. Just like her name Banana, She loves warm and vibrant colors, which show casual and free. She is also childlike in her works. Most of her works are biased in colors, which are bright, adorable and imaginative. A decorative painting often presents an unexpected effect. Her work is highly recognizable, distinct and childlike, but Wang Banana is an academic artist who has focused on painting for a long time. She held the brush since she remembered things. Year after year, after she graduated from the University, she found her unique style and innate talent. Her works of art seem to be like magic, revealing the breadth of love, time and life.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

This is a group of dog selfie series, inspired by taking selfies with “Pidan” and “Xiandan”. When my poses were ready, they would move suddenly. I imagined if they pressed the shutter themselves, what the moment would be like?

Its own serial number is marked behind each painting. When we arrive at the year of unknown, I will be hosting a big party for the 1000 dogs, a callback exhibition inviting all the art collectors to attend with the “Selfie Series” piece/s they own. Let’s wish for this day.

• 

• 

• 

• 

---

Cheng Ning

Born in Shanghai in December 1952, Chen Ning graduated from the Shanghai Arts and Crafts School and is a member of the Shanghai Artists Association.

He moved to Melbourne, Australia in 1989. Chen Ning’s works are mostly made with traditional Chinese ink painting paper and pigments, but his technique is a blend of Australian Aboriginal pointillism. He is obsessed with painting all kinds of animals, and is especially good at painting horses. Having raised horses, he is familiar with their movements, and his horses are full of interest and imagination, and his works are unique among contemporary Australian artists for their elegance and creativity.

---

Qian Gang

Qian Gang was born in Shanghai China in 1958. He graduated from Shanghai Light Industry College in 1985 and completed a master degree from the San Francisco Art Institute in 1988. In 1991, he experienced life in the Province town in Massachusetts which located in America. In 1997, he worked and created in Willimanburg, brooklyn, New York. In 2004, he moved the art studio back to Shanghai.

---

Joseph Hsien

Born in Guangzhou, China, Joseph is an emerging freelance photographer. In the year of 2017 he completed Bachelor of Photography at RMIT. After that he started his career as a freelance photographer which particularly interested in the field of art photography. Using a mix of drawing, sculpture, architecture, etc. interfered by digital processing, his artworks often appear to be abstract, glitchy, and hardly recognizable of the original objects taken. However, this chaotic aesthetics reflected a phenomenon of contemporary photography as digital techniques play a dominant role of storing and dissemination of photographic images. Dark Light High Light, named after the very basics of photography, as well as a digital processing technique Joseph is showcasing in his collections for the show.

---

Shaohua Nong

Before moving to Songzhuang, Beijing and settling in a studio in 2010, Nong Shaohua had several jobs in Shanxi Province, where he was born and grew up. Nong worked maintaining boilers and cleaning trains and never engaged in any formal academic art study. Instead, Nong explored his own way of painting. Decrepit bikes leave covered country roads, a voyeuristic man leaning against a wall, a chicken wandering on a roof… Nong’s unique and free organization of these ordinary, seemingly insignificant aspects of his paintings reveal to us the indeterminate plot, subtle symbols, and humorous irony that marks his work.

Nong Shaohua says his inspiration comes mainly from meditating, and that he is also influenced by the random and accidental in everyday life. He also draws some influences from the film. On looking at his paintings it is clear that he intentionally avoids presenting a clear cultural identity, and similarly avoids topics linked to current events and happenings. This is clear from the ways in which Nong often obscures the individuality of the characters in his paintings, as well as their social status, cultural backgrounds and even genders. He ultimately creates his own worlds within his paintings, one which is fantastical in its detachment from the real world. His canvases are not marked by some traditional Chinese painting style, nor are they comfortably viewed and understood with reference to Western, or ancient, or even contemporary artistic techniques and subjects. For example, his paintings are often not constrained by traditional rules of perspective.

In all of this Nong Shaohua is able to present a surreal and dreamlike world, both in form, technique, and subject. Nong hopes that his paintings are accessible and that no matter where his audiences come from and regardless of their cultural background they are able to read the stories he presents, become lost in their plots, and feel their varied emotions, from depression and sadness to happiness and cheerfulness.

Nong Shaohua is an artist who uses the subconscious and meditation to communicate with the world. His difference is derived from this. He never presupposes the style of his work, not even the style. He cares about the process of his work. Because, in this process, he has a kind of communication that is difficult for others to understand with the ever-changing picture. He is obsessed with this kind of communication, and his works are the result of this exchange. It may be about human nature, desire, loneliness, and may also be about conspiracy, sin, fear, and may also be about delusions, madness, embarrassment, helplessness, etc. These secrets of the world, which are secret and real, are the content of his communication with the picture. The so-called exchange is like two people talking. There are questions and answers, and there are opinions and opinions. However, Nong Shaohua uses his visual language to communicate with his pictures. Moreover, his visual language has left our visual experience. It is the reason that his picture always gives people a sense of strangeness.

The universe is like a dream, the earth is like a dream, and life is like a dream. In the gradual accumulation of experience, human civilisation has broken through epistemology as the Buddhist sayings, “All things are law, such as dream bubbles.” Nong Shaohua’s painting world is a dreamy fictional reality. Most of his works are reflected in a “fantasy reality”, and the almost fictional scene shows his inner world. It can be asserted that his picture realm is in the sense of psychology or psychoanalysis. The spiritual world of an artist is mostly biased towards the sensuous side of talent.

---

Gemma Yang

Gemma is keen on discovering the beauty of nature and reality of human. Her works express an emotion of love and compassion. She was awarded in national and international competitions. Her works has been published in 1X.com                  

Her limited-edition prints are limited to two prints.

She participated below national and international competitions:

2018 1st ADPA International （PSA，GPU）

2019 ‘Moving Moments’ Australian Railroad Photo Competition.

2019 1st GCPA International (PSA, GPU)  

2020 16th PSA China international exhibition of photography (PSA)

2020 Shenzhen China international exhibition of photography (PSA, GPU, IPF)    

2020 32nd Sutherland Shire National Exhibition of Photography (APS)

2020 2nd GCPA International (PSA, GPU)