Hong Lei

Hong Lei was born in Changzhou, Jiangsu Province.1960. He lives and works in Changzhou, Anhui provence now. Early on, he says he was fascinated by splendid and elegant things from the past, things he discovered in his family history and local Jiangnan customs. That is one reason his photographs often use traditional images, like pine trees, bamboo, plum blossoms, orchids and Jiangnan gardens, which were once filled with luxurious jewels and carpentry work.

Hong got a late start as an artist - he worked for a time before studying oil painting attending the Nanjing Art College, which he graduated from in 1987. After college, he studied print making at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing and by 1993 had some of his expressionistic oil paintings were exhibited in the Guangzhou Biennale of Modern Art. He held a solo exhibition of his paintings in 1993, titled “Metaphysical Poetics.

In 1996, Hong says he took a photograph of his installation work, “Chinese box,” by chance. The photograph, of a dead bird with a pearl necklace in a red wood traditional jewelry box won him praise from friends and critics. And from that moment, Hong says he switched to photography. He created, “The Imperial court of the Song Dynasty Copy” series and “China Landscape” (Suzhou Gardens) series, as well as “Landscapes in Black and White.” In these duplications of famous Chinese art works, the viewer can see that under Hong’s shell of classical images, what he really wants to express is his anxiety about the conflicts between reality and tradition.

Hong’s second solo photography exhibition, “Transmitting the Ancient,” is opening at the Chambers Fine Art Gallery, 4/F, 210 Eleventh Ave, Manhattan, from Apr. 20 to June.3. It includes three series of photos: Speak, Memory of (2004-2005), TaiLake Stone(2005), and “Physics”(2002).

C.V.

Other and former works: