Booth C30
Born in Xinjiang, China, Silia Ka Tung has lived and worked in London since 1997. After training as a fine arts painter in China and London, first at Chelsea College of Arts and then at the Slade School of Fine Art, she began experimenting with sewn textiles, creating soft sculptures of fantastical animals and organic forms such as fruits and tree branches. Growing up in Hong Kong, she was exposed to Asian pop culture, manga, and fantasy TV series, and Tung's playful paintings include random abstract elements alongside organic forms rendered in bold, vibrant colors. Eastern and Western myths find their place in the work: science fiction, religion, and phenomena
of the natural world create an intriguing mix of modern and science fiction fantasy combined with influences from Chinese culture and tradition. Order and chaos; they go hand in hand with yin and yang, there is a delicate balance of opposing and interconnected forces. The artist describes her work as a secret doorway to both her understanding of the world and her fantasies.
Fascinated by the intricacies of nature, she often draws inspiration from the audiobooks she listens to as she works and leans toward those that bridge science and magic. Recently it has been titles about trees, mushrooms, and figs that have particularly captured her imagination.
Such as Anna Tsing's book "The Mushroom at the End of the World," which tells the story of the rare matsutake mushroom and what it can teach us about life, vulnerability and capitalism. He is greatly inspired by mushrooms and eagerly researches the latest discoveries about their incredible properties. "Fairy Ring" is a floor textile sculpture with a circular arrangement of exotically colored mushrooms; the work makes direct reference to the role of mushrooms in traditional Chinese medicine and the influence of growth immersed in his father's specialized Chinese medical practice. Wang Yuxiang was born in 1997 in Anhui, China and currently lives and works in Italy.
His research focuses on fusing Mediterranean culture with his Eastern culture of origin through the use of simple materials and a seemingly concise visual language. Time, history and memory are the conceptual leitmotifs that guide his work; the artist moves away from the place where he intervenes to analyze particularities, returning them through site-specific visual architectures. Influenced by deconstructionism, he initiates a preliminary research and study of the context in order to later intervene on it. The themes explored revolve around the promotion of equality in contemporary art, deconstruction of context, reflection on hidden violence and rights in aesthetics and the social landscape, and analysis of the feasibility and practicability of cultural heritage protection. His training, begun in his birthplace and implemented during his sojourns and travels, allows him to combine his research with a consideration of cultural diversity and Western centrism in the context of globalization.
His training, begun in his birthplace and implemented during his sojourns and travels, allows him to combine his research with a consideration of cultural diversity and Western centrism in the context of globalization.
One of the artist's points of reference is the ancient Chinese book "Shan Hai Jing," translated as Book of Seas and Mountains. Within it are plates describing geography and mythological creatures dating back to the pre Qin period over two thousand years ago. This is just the pretext Wang Yuxiang uses to create a bridge between the past and the present, sending a subtle message of alarm for the entire planet. It is interesting that the operation accomplished by Wang Yuxiang, an artist born in 1997, indicates how certain issues are sensitive to all generations and cultures on the planet and how art can spread this fundamental message to future generations. In contrast, Silia Ka Tung, an artist of another generation, more lightly and vividly brings back similar arguments that seek to connect humans with ancient Asian culture capable of having respond to the human-nature symbiosis.
