Qiming Sun: Soundless Sonata
Gordon Snelgrove Gallery • Saskatoon • July 2019
Artist Biography:
Qiming Sun is a Canadian artist born in Panzhihua, Sichuan, China. He graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts High Honours degree from the University of Saskatchewan in 2016, and a Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Saskatchewan in 2018.
He has been the recipient of many art awards, fellowships, and scholarships. His artworks are included in the permanent collection of Kenderdine Art Gallery, Gordon Snelgrove Gallery, and Museum of Antiquities at the University of Saskatchewan.
Statement：
In classical portrait painting, the depicted figure needs to form some type of dialogue with the audience. The outfit of the figures, the direction of their gaze, and the position of their gesticulations all send out consistent yet subtle messages for the viewers to engage with. The dialogue component differentiates portraitures from still-lives: the figures in the painting are not lifeless objects to be contemplated passively. However, would such dialogue persists when the painted subject no longer draws their breath? Are the portraits of the dead indistinguishable from the still-lives? Or are they whispering their poetry through even more elusive means?
Soundless Sonata scrutinizes this intriguing aspect of portrait painting. Influenced by Danse Macabre and vanitas, this series of paintings explores the connection and dichotomy between portraiture and still-life. Each portrait depicts humans that met their ends through varied circumstances and displays different stages of decay. Their stories and emotions were subtly expressed in almost silent murmurs. Through their eyeless sockets and clay-cold lips, the dead perform a symphony of silence under the gallery lights.
Gallery Space:
The Gordon Snelgrove Gallery is located in the Murray Building alongside the Department of Art and Art History and is both a teaching facility and public gallery. It provides a venue for new work by artists and curators both within the department and operates as a site of direct exchange with the local arts ecology.
The gallery was named in honour of Gordon Snelgrove (1898–1966), a painter, faculty member and possibly the first art historian in Canada to receive a PhD in his discipline. The gallery also maintains and displays works by graduating students from the Department of Art and Art History Collection.
