Helen J Gallery LA presents the inaugural solo exhibition of Ai Jing: All the World Is Green opening February 27th 2024

Established artist, Ai JIng lands in LA for her first solo exhibition titled "All The World Is Green" at Helen J Gallery in Los Angeles

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, UNITED STATES, February 29, 2024 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Helen J Gallery is thrilled to announce Ai Jing’s solo exhibition, All the World is Green – her first in Los Angeles and with the gallery opening on February 27th, 2024.

“An unappeased yearning to return” -- as Milan Kundera described nostalgia -- fuels Ai Jing’s forays into painting, video, and installation. The acclaimed multi-hyphenate artist, musician, writer, and actress channels recollections from her unpretentious and buoyant childhood, distilled into the exhibitions’ centerpiece, the life-sized Girl and Swing. Surrounding color field paintings and a recreated meadow underneath parallels her memories “of Northeastern Chinese villages, which were drenched in colorful harvest: the corn fields, gold: the sun, different shades of green.”

Yet earlier in her career, Ai followed the opposite impulse, as recounted in her hit folk-rock single, My 1997: “I left my hometown of Shenyang at 17 / Because that place isn’t where I’ll find my dream.” Only after international acclaim and years spent abroad did Ai experience a yearning to return. By then, the booming factories that employed her family had been repurposed and the country transformed. “We have lost the spirit of that epoch,” Ai laments.

A cast of characters from her past inhabits Ai’s autobiographical approach. In her Mr. R series, Ai reacts to pivotal works by Mark Rothko whose latent influence prompted her to explore abstraction firsthand. Tom Wait’s hopeful but melancholic song, All the World is Green, resonates in Ai’s exhibition title and mirrors her broader outlook. Ai’s chance encounter with a Keith Haring book bearing ‘LOVE’ on its cover turned the ubiquitous phrase into a personal mantra, recurring under dense layers of saturated oils. Ai’s family, however, are her true muses, whether her artisan grandfather, her musician father, or her late mother, whose unwavering presence during years of hardship makes her the central figure of Ai’s narrative.

“Sentimentality is a trap,” Ai cautions, and so is ignoring the past. Working against a backdrop of social and environmental crises worldwide, she remembers the optimism of Shenyang’s factories, and reminds that “we must firmly believe that our hands can create the future.”

Maybe when our story’s over,
We’ll go where it’s always spring,
The band is playing our song again,
And all the world is green.

-Tom Waits, All the World is Green

About Ai Jing

Ai Jing began painting in 1999 and later moved to New York to study contemporary art. In 2007, she officially participated in art exhibitions as an artist. In 2008, she held her first solo art exhibition "ALL ABOUT LOVE" in Beijing Today Art Museum. In October 2009, she held a solo exhibition "AL WANT TO LOVE" in New York. In May 2010, she participated in the theme exhibition “Transforming History” — China (Contemporary) Documentary Exhibition, where her installation work "The Tree of Life" received much attention.

In November 2012, Ai Jing held a solo exhibition titled "I LOVE AI JING: Ai Jing Comprehensive Art Exhibition" at the National Museum of China, thus becoming the first contemporary artist to hold a solo exhibition since the establishment of the national Museum of China. In June 2013, Ai Jing's sculpture "The Wave" was collected by the National Museum of China. In May 2014, her touring exhibition "LOVE AIJING: Ai Jing's Love" was held at the China Art Museum in Shanghai, where she was also the first contemporary artist to hold a solo exhibition since the establishment of the Museum. In June 2015, Ai Jing started her global touring exhibition, with the first stop at the Ambrosio Art Gallery (Pinacoteca Ambrosiana) in Milan, Italy, where the exhibition titled "Dialogue." She was also the first contemporary artist to hold a solo exhibition in the Museum's over four-hundred-year history.

Irene Lam
July PR & Communications
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