王一凡与他的三个模特

星空间将于2020年8月15日至9月11日举办王一凡个展“王一凡与他的三个模特”，展出艺术家在近一年之间创作的十余幅油画。

从2015年起，王一凡将艺术创作的重心转移至肖像绘画，并从一开始，他就以身边的亲友为对象。此次展览标题中的“三个模特”指的就是他最主要的三个模特——吴小可、洁夫和艺术家本人，他们的形象都不断、反复出现在王一凡的绘画中。

在不同的艺术语境下，艺术家对待“模特”的方式也大不相同。在王一凡这里，模特为其所用的基础是其客观存在的“形”，但其对“形”的利用，并不局限于外在的相貌，还蔓延到真实人物所具有的复杂个性和内心情感。在绘画进行之前，王一凡会认真地给他的模特“说戏”，具体描述他所需要的姿势与表情，但作为他的模特，往往对自己最终会被置于何种“情”、“境”并不知情。王一凡所专注的肖像绘画介于虚构与非虚构之间：他将自己与身边的人们，不断编入其所导演的一幕又一幕戏剧。

王一凡的作品中偶尔也会出现“三个模特”以外的其他人：“谢生（谢墨凛）和光乐（王光乐）也是我的朋友，以后也可能会画更多的人，但这就不一定了”。

Star Gallery is going to present Wang Yifan’s solo show Wang Yifan and His Three Models from 15 August to 11 September 2020. The exhibition will include more than 10 oil paintings recently created in the past dozen months.

Wang Yifan’s focus of art has been switched to the painting of portraits since 2015, whose subjects started from the artist’s relatives and friends. His three key models— Wu Xiaoke, Jeff and the artist himself — are “the three models” in the title of this exhibition, who are constantly and repeatedly seen in Wang’s paintings.

The way an artist treats his or her models varies in different contexts of art. To Wang Yifan, the fundamental use of a model is the subjective shape of “it”. Not limited to the appearances, however, the shape will extend to the complicated personalities and emotions of the sitter as a real person. Before he starts, Wang Yifan will always give specific instructions to his models like a theatre director, making sure the exact pose and facial expression that he expects to see is fully explained. Nevertheless, his models are usually unaware of the situations and settings that they will be put into. The painting of portraits that Wang Yifan is devoted to sits on the border of fiction and nonfiction, where he has continued to weave people around him, together with himself, into one and other act of his opera.

More often than not, other models besides the three will appear in Wang Yifan’s paintings, such as “Mr. Xie (Xie Molin) and Guangle (Wang Guangle), who are also my friends. Maybe there will be some others, but I am not sure.”