DongDawei：Backside

Ginkgo Space is delighted to announce Dong Dawei’s solo exhibition, “Backside” from September 7 to October 19, 2019. This show marks the artist’s first collaboration with Ginkgo Space, presents the artist’s series of work using color markers. 

DongDawei’s ongoing series of works on paper that uses color markers has become a visual icon of the artist’s practice. At the same time, these works are also being interpreted on a superficial level. This exhibition “Backside” aims to reveal the practice and concepts behind the surface of these works. 

“Backside”has two layers of meanings: the literal and metaphorical. The literal refers to the paper and the back of the painting. Dong Dawei’s works on paper often starts with one side of the paper and allows the ink of the markers to permeate to the back, which is what we perceive as the final work of art; the metaphorical, is similar to what we refer to as the back stage. Dong Dawei’s practice embodies the compositional aspects on the surface, as well as the procedural and conceptual aspects behind the surface, while the back is metaphorical for the notions behind these works.

DongDawei’s paintings are not necessarily done solely relying on subjectivity and sensibility but follow certain objective logic to grow within the set limitations. For Dong Dawei, paying respect to the objective is the basis of exchange between the work of art and the viewer. This exhibition will not onlyinclude the artist’s recent works, but also drawings, video documentation of his creative process, even some failed attempts, to reveal the “Backside” of Dong Dawei’s artistic practice.

Dong Dawei, born in Dalian, 1981, graduated from the Lu Xun Academy of Art in 2004. In 2011, he obtaining DNSEP with congratulations by the jury in ENSA-Bourges (Ecole Nationale Supérieure d’art de Bourges), France. His main solo exhibitions include： Ready Wrote, Enclave Art Center,Shenzhen, China (2018); Backside, Insight Asia, Art Basel Hong Kong,Hong Kong, China (2018); Visible Light, A+ Contemporary, Taiwan，China (2017); Dust to Dust, HDM Gallery, Beijing, China (2017);The CommonReader, Gallery Yang,Beijing, China (2016); The Theory Of Clouds, SpaceStation Gallery, Beijing, China (2015); A Singular Point, Gallery Perrotin, Hong Kong, China(2015), and etc.