Solo Exhibition

SHEN Yongji's debut solo exhibition in New York brings together wall-based and free-standing sculptures that explore the intersection of tradition, contemporary materials, and perception. Rooted in Chinese sculptural heritage yet shaped by a distinctly contemporary sensibility, Shen's work moves between representation and abstraction, physical presence and visual illusion.

Trained at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing, where he received both his MFA and PhD in Sculpture, SHEN has developed a practice centered on the possibilities of sculptural language and space. His approach begins with traditional forms and cultural memory but deliberately moves beyond historical reproduction. As he describes his continuing pursuit: "To inherit and integrate traditional sculpture elements into a contemporary sculpture language.""

Material is central to this transformation. SHEN combines traditional sculptural references and techniques with contemporary materials including Plexiglass, crystal resin, gold, and silver. These materials allow historical forms to acquire new qualities of transparency, depth, reflection, color, and surface. His sculptures frequently possess a highly polished, luminous finish that catches and redirects light, producing shifting reflections and subtle optical effects. His works seem to swoop, swell, and radiate with a sense of dynamic energy and optimism.

While Shen's work situates him at the cutting edge of an art movement that began in the West in the 1930s, the exhibition offers a personal point of entry into an artistic practice concerned with a larger question: how can an inherited visual culture be transformed into a contemporary language while preserving the ideas that shaped it?

SHEN Yongji's works have been presented at numerous domestic and international art fairs and biennales and exhibited by institutions including the Louvre, Today Art Museum, and Ningbo Museum of Art, among others. His New York debut brings this evolving sculptural practice into a broader international context, where questions of cultural inheritance, material transformation, and perception become part of an ongoing contemporary conversation about what sculpture can be.

FOR MORE INFORMATION: Please contact please contact Michelle Y. Loh at myloh2000@yahoo.com

Hall Rental Payment Button

	Like us on Facebook! Join our: *Music, Workshops & Events mailing list and/or *Fine Arts mailing list
	Tenri Cultural Institute    School of Japanese Language    Gallery    Performing Arts    Tenrikyo Church    Home
	TENRI CULTURAL INSTITUTE OF NEW YORK 43A WEST 13TH STREET, NEW YORK, NEW YORK 10011 TELEPHONE 212.645.2800 EMAIL tci@tenri.org