Dongwang Fan, a carver, draughtsman, sculptor and painter born in Shanghai, China, 1958.
Fan studied traditional Chinese arts and Western oil painting at Shanghai School of Arts and Crafts between 1977 and 1980. The artist’s first major exhibition was at Shanghai Art Gallery in 1982 and this was followed by his inclusion in the Shanghai Art Museum Inaugural Exhibition in 1986 and the Shanghai International Art Festival in 1987. Fan lectured in Visual Arts at Shanghai School of Arts and Crafts from 1988/89.
Fan immigrated to Australia in 1990 via the Distinguished Talent Scheme. In Sydney he undertook his Masters of Arts at the University of New South Wales’s College of Fine Arts in 1995. Unable to enroll in his desired sculpting course, Fan majored in painting.
A trip to Shanghai in 1998 emphasised a sense of cultural ambiguity for Fan – modernization and globalisation had changed Shanghai so dramatically that the city he left in 1990 was virtually unrecognisable.
In 1999 Fan completed his Doctorate of Creative Arts from the University of Wollongong, titling his thesis Shifting Perspectives and the Body. Here Fan investigated European and Chinese artistic spatial theories, promoting a new model from the comparison of the two. His accompanying work comprises of 5 panels combining iconography, composition and perspective from both Western and Chinese Art History. Fan utilized techniques such as vibrant colour and shadow to imitate the low relief carving aesthetic he studied in Shanghai to create works with multiple viewing points. Highlighting issues of globalization, diaspora and shifting identity and culture Fan relates the ambiguity of perspective with the ambiguity of culture and identity he experienced in Shanghai in 1998.
In 2001 Fan, along with key Chinese political pop figures Li Shan and Yu Youhan, participated in Shanghai Star at Casula Powerhouse, a six-week residency that culminated in an exhibition of works created in that period. Fan, who was a key element in the project development and execution, had studied under Yu in Shanghai and admired Li for some time. Fan’s painted acrylic on canvas works in this exhibition included magnified Chinese dragons and motifs. Russell Storer cites this collaborative exhibition as a turning point in Fan’s career stating it’s “reengagement with the Shanghai of his youth, and with his mentors, has shifted the emphasis in his new work from complex bicultural collision to simpler bolder statements.” (Storer, Art Asia Pacific, Issue 34, 2002, p.23)
Fan followed this exhibition with his Dragon in Water series in pencil on paper and acrylic on canvas and most recently his acrylic on canvas Gum Tree series.
Fan was commissioned in 2000 by the Australian National Gallery for his installation Descendant and has been the recipient of four Australia Council Visual Art New Work Grants and the Ian Potter Cultural Trust Grant in 2003. He was a finalist in the Art Gallery of New South Wales’s 2013 Blake Prize.
Fan is currently based in Sydney.
- Writers:
- Weiner, Sarah
De Lorenzo, Catherine
- Date written:
- 2010
- Last updated:
- 2014
