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KARL WEIMING LU

                                     Lives and works in Sydney, Australia
                                     www.kwluart.com





            Karl Weiming Lu was a member of the first generation of   for further use. That doesn’t seem to work well and the

            Chinese artists, after the end of the Cultural Revolution,   process seems to degenerate or deteriorate in the way
            to seriously begin thinking and experimenting in the visual   that we see Lu’s paint dripping down his canvases from
            arts. This movement of “85 New Wave Art” is usually cited   his arches or spirals or other figures. When we experience
            as having begun in some of China’s larger cities around the   some motive or emotion or any type of inner process that
            year 1985 which lasted a few years till 1989.        we  find  valuable  we  attempt  to  make  it  more  concrete
            Lu now lives and works in Sydney and he apparently first   or we attempt to create a visual representation for the
            created his ‘dripping flow’ technique in the 2000s as part   experience, but the experience becomes lost and the visual
            of a series he did on the theme of memory. For his current   markers soon lose any meaning. So I see a bit of process art
            amazing show at the Andre Zarre Gallery, his work seems   in Lu’s swirls and spirals – we see a beginning and ending

            focused on the paradox we live with every day and which   of a process but at the same time we see the deterioration
            should probably be driving all of us nuts – how could the   of the experience as it is attempted to be shifted into a
            universe come from nothing or how could there have   more usable cognitive form.
            always been stuff/energy from which to derive a universe?   The paintings also work, however, as an investigation of
            As the old rhyme goes: “How could something come from   origins and our attempts to capture that which seemingly
            nothing? How could something always be? It’s the riddle   can’t be captured.  In Marlowe’s Dr. Faustus, Faustus flat
            you can’t answer. It’s the answer you can’t see.” Basically,   out asks Mephistophilis how the universe came into being

            if we are to trust the  human intellect, nothing should exist.  and Mephistophilis becomes outraged. Even the chief
            To be honest with you though, when I saw Lu’s work at Zarre   representative of Satan can’t tell Faustus how the universe
            Gallery in New York, I liked it because it seemed to employ   came into being. Lu’s abstract images and his technique
            the perfect technique to capture the central problem of   in  creating these images  seem to  capture our  constant
            memory for me. Memorizing stuff that we see or sense   attempts and constant failures to crack the one nut that
            is fine. Memorizing information is fine. The real problem   seems impossible to crack.
            happens when we have meaningful or transformative    ( “Karl Weiming Lu – Recent Paintings – Andre Zarre Gallery”,
            experience in our inner reality and try to capture that   New York, 05/27/2015, by Arte Fuse Guest Writer Daniel Gauss )


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