Empty Space. The light beyond the shadow
MASSIMODECARLO is pleased to present Empty Space. The light beyond the shadow, Lu Song’s first solo exhibition at Pièce Unique in Paris.
Over the course of two weeks, the gallery will show six paintings from Lu Song’s Empty Space series, one painting at the time, for two days each.
Empty Space. The light beyond the shadow is an invitation to explore ambiguity. Playing with the contrast of empty and full, Lu Song fills his canvases with pure matter: rather than represent objects or places, he shifts his attention to a higher, more distant ground, focusing on his feelings, pouring his sensations onto the canvas.
In his own words, these paintings “make uncertainty visible and sensible by emphasizing the relationship between the known and the unknown”. Influenced by Tanizaki Junichiro's 1933 "In Praise of Shadows" – an essay that analyses Japanese philosophy of aesthetics – each work explores a different aspect of the artist’s interior realm: “His words brought me a different perspective to observe and think about the objective world.”
Suspended in time, each painting explores a different color palette, and color combinations, ranging from deep purples to chalky greens and electric blues. Lu’s characteristically bold, lush brushstrokes are layered with more liquid transparencies, with hints of natural, organic forms afloat in his compositions.
The Artist
Lu Song (1982, Beijing, China) is an artist based in Beijing. Graduated in 2006 from the Wimbledon College of Art London, he has exhibited all over the world since then with shows in Berlin, New York, London, Copenhagen, Sao Paulo in Brazil. Lu’s painting is characteristically by his use of well tempered sepia tone colours and application of tonal range that he applies with bold sweeping brush strokes. The result is a visual experience that draws the viewers into the scene, evoking a certain mood that is contemplative and surreal.
He has exhibited all over the world with solo exhibitions in Hong Kong, Berlin, Sidney, Beijing. He exhibited with Interni romani, at the Mattatoio in Roma (2018) and with an important retrospective titled Flow at the OCAT Museum in Xi’an, China (2017). Song’s group exhibitions include: Keep Going John Armleder & Lu Song (Special project), Westbund Shangai (2020), Ulysses’s Gaze – the Return of Painterliness and Soulful Contemplation, Ginkgo Art Center, Beijing (2016); China Arte Brazil, Sao Paulo, Brazil (2014); Das Ich im Anderen, Mercator Foundation, Essen (2014). His work is included in prominent collections such as the K11 Art Foundation in Hong Kong, the Akagawa Collection in Sao Paolo, Brazil, the Bronner/Philara Collection in Düsseldorf, Germany and the Dean Valentine Collection in Los Angeles, USA.