Biography

Like many artists in China, his work is focused on the increasing dilemmas brought about by the evolving influences of Western cultural and economic values

Born in 1968, Kaiyuan, China
Living and working in Beijing, China
The painter He Sen was born in the Yunnan province, China, in 1968, that is at the beginning of the Cultural Revolution. Twenty years later he began his artistic training at the Schuan Academy of Fine Arts, in 1989, the year the democratic movement in China was put down. He Sen’s career has therefore been – whether consciously or unconsciously – permeated by transformations which have shaped Chinese society until the present, and ultimately coincided with the ongoing phase of rapid urban and economic growth.
He started to exhibit in the early 90s mostly in China. From 2003 on he started to exhibit in solo shows like “women’s Portraits” (2000) at Beijing’s Red Gate Gallery, “Out of the Red” (2003) at Milan’s Primo Marella Gallery, “Come Together” (2008) at the Tilton Gallery of New York and “Pure Views” (2013) at Japanese Fukuoka Museum.
Like many artists in China, his work is focused on the increasing dilemmas brought about by the evolving influences of Western cultural and economic values. For more than a decade he has created provocative and large-scale works that portray youth struggling in China’s fast-changing modern society. Adopting the iconographical tradition of using femininity as an expression of vulnerability, He Sen has chosen to predominately portray young, beautiful, but troubled women. These blurred photorealistic images - women smoking in their homes, young people in seductive underwear and poses - explore how China’s youths were seduced by the growing influences of westernisation and globalisation, as well as the artist’s pessimistic outlook on this generation.
The hyper-realistic clarity of his figures, lending his paintings a photographic element, renders the deeper psychological issues of his work all the more immediate and meaningful. More recently He Sen has turned to reinventing classical Chinese landscape paintings, replacing his figures with symbols as bamboo and pine.
“The main body of work series inspired by tradition consists in two genres typical of Chinese painting: “landscape” and “flowers and birds”. Both subjects portray what in China is the main source of artistic inspiration and poetical exalting: Nature.

At times human presence is hinted at, often a wise man or hermit isolated in a natural context of which these men constitute one of the many elements. Man’s fragility and melancholy are lost in the vigour of a nature that is strong and powerful also for the clear-cut and aggressive features with which he is depicted, oftentimes sharp and pointy. […]. That of He Sen is a sort of Neo-classicism: he refers to the “classics”, to the canonical works of his own country which he sums up and gives new life to. […]. The artist had momentarily lost sight of a past which now returns because it is impossible to forget one’s own roots.”
Works
Solo & Group Show

He Sen CV 

Born in 1968 in Kaiyuan (China).

 

EXHIBITIONS

Solo Show

2022

Coucher De Soleil ,Primae Noctis ,Lugano, Switzerland
2021

Mindscapes. Curated by Dagmar Carnevale Lavezzoli, HOFA Gallery, London ,Mayfair, London, UK
2018

He Sen: Reinventing traditional Chinese art ,Primae Noctis ,Lugano, Switzerland

2017
Journey to the East, Longmen Art Projects, Shanghai, CN

2014
Return at Dusk, Enlightenement at Dawn- He Sen , Longmen Art Projects, Shanghai

2012
Conversing with the Moon, Today Art Museum, Beijing, CN

2010
Scene illusry, Marella Art Contemporary, Milan, IT

2009
Best Print Collection of He Sen, A Story Gallery, Busan, KR Painting, Art Now Gallery, Beijing, CN

2008
Come Together, Jack Tilton Gallery, New York, US
Do You Have Time Tonight, Galerie Frank Schlag & Cie, Essen, DE

2007
Now and Then, Art Now Gallery, Beijing, CN

2004
Shadow Shaped, Art Now Gallery, Beijing, CN

2003
Girl . Toy . Smoke, Red Gate Gallery, Beijing, CN
He Sen Solo Exhibition, Marella Art Contemporary, Milan, IT

2002
He Sen Solo Exhibition, Piltzer Gallery, Paris, FR

2001
Scene, Eastlink Gallery, Shanghai, CN

2000
Women's Portraits, Red Gate Gallery, Pechino, CN

1992
Fist Exhibition, Chongqing, CN

 

Group Show

2015
Secret Signs, Deichtorhallen, Hamburg, DE

2013
Pure Views,Fukuoka Museum, JP
Timeless Contemporary- Recent Works by YE Yongqing, LI Lei, GAO Huijun, HE Sen, YU Jie, LIN Hairong, and LUO Dan , Longmen Art Projects, Shanghai

2011
Expression of Chinese Contemporary Art, Today Art Museum, Beijing, CN Pure Views, Chengdu Biennale, Chengdu, CN

2010
Cina. Rinascita Contemporanea – Palazzo Reale, Milan, IT
The Second Reality, Meridian International Center, Washington,US The Outsiders, Marella Gallery, Milan, IT
Biennale di Venezia, Venezia, IT

2008
Rendez-Vous, Marella Gallery, Beijing, CN Today’s China, Belvue Museum, Bruxelles, BE

2007
Made in China-Contemporary Chinese Art, Louisiana Museum, Copenhagen, DK

2006
Shanghai Art Museum, Shanghai, CN

2004
New Perspectives in Chinese Painting, Marella Arte Contemporanea, Milan, IT

2003
Out of the Red - China Art Now, Marella Arte Contemporanea, Milan, IT