In this talk, the Chinese multi-media and installation artist Jennifer Wen Ma will discuss her innovative use of Chinese ink and her longstanding research into Chinese landscape painting. She will also discuss her more recent research into the history of mythological gardens, in relation to her recent work Molar that will be shown in the exhibition A Beautiful Disorder at Cass Sculpture Foundation. (http://www.sculpture.org.uk/event/a-beautiful-disorder)
Jennifer Wen Ma (1973, Beijing, China) is an artist whose interdisciplinary practice bridges varied media such as installation, drawing, video, public art, design, performance, and theatre; often bringing together unlikely elements in a single piece, creating sensitive, poetic and poignant works. In 2008, Ma was one of the seven members on the core creative team for the opening and closing ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics, and the chief designer for visual and special effects.
Recent projects include Paradise Interrupted, an arresting installation opera that weaves the myths of the Garden of Eden and Peony Pavilion, commissioned by Spoleto USA Festival, Lincoln Center Festival, and National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts, presented in preview in the Temple of Dendur, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2015. Her work has been shown in numerous international biennials, as well as the Guggenheim Bilbao, Spain, the Solomon R Guggenheim Museum, New York and the National art Museum of China, Beijing. Solo exhibitions include: Hanart Square, Hong Kong, 2013; Ullens Center For Contemporary Art, Beijing, 2012; Eslite Gallery, Taipei, 2012; and The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC, 2009. Permanent public installations include: Nature and Man in Rhapsody of Light at the Water Cube, The National Aquatic Center, Beijing, 2013; In-Between World—Daydream Nation, Digital Beijing Building, 2008; Aeolian Garden, city of Colle di Val d’Elsa, Italy, 2005, among others.
Image caption: Jennifer Wen Ma, Molar, 2016. Courtesy of the artist