Debra Li

    MALE audiences may secretly envy Chen Lianfu, who has made a career of sculpting beautiful female bodies. A teacher with Shenyang-based Luxun Academy of Fine Arts, Chen has been focusing on the female body for the past dozen years, although he occasionally creates avant-garde works.

    Nearly a hundred of Chen’s works are on display at Artron Art Gallery until Saturday. Most of the works, made of bronze or fiber-reinforced plastic, feature female bodies both young and mature, presenting them in a realistic and perfectionist style. The sculptures come in various postures, whose rich range of body language conveys moods from joy and excitement to melancholiness and nostalgia.

    Most of the models were Chen’s friends or students. A familiarity between the artist and his models helps Chen capture the beauty of their bodies and individual temperament in a relaxed environment. Some were based on photos, but most were done in person.

    Some of the works have undergone special treatment by erosive chemicals so that the bronze surface displays beautiful veins reminiscent of geyao (哥窑) crackle glaze porcelain. Each piece of the sculptures will go through approximately eight procedures before it’s completed. And the artist is a craftsman in the first place.

    “Few artists in the world have mastered this technique in bronze sculpting,” explained Li Zhiqi, spokesman of Artron.

    “Chen’s works presently sell for between 200,000 yuan (US$31,000) and 400,000 yuan apiece.”

    According to Sun Zhenhua, president of Shenzhen Academy of Sculpture, the significance of Chen’s works lies in his revelation of the Chinese female body.

    Objectifying the female body was a taboo for most of China’s long history, although there were periods, such as the Buddhist-influenced Tang Dynasty (618-907) and the Western-influenced early 20th century, that the female body was liberated in art.

    After 1949, the female form existed only for purposes of understanding the portion of the human body. It was not encouraged to represent the female body in a piece of art work. Therefore, most of the sculptures before the 1980s cast women in clothes in a non-sexual pose.

    Then, after 1979, many Chinese artists enthusiastically jumped onto the avant-garde bandwagon to proclaim their modernity and represent the female body in bold, exaggerated manners.

    Chen, however, sticks to his research of the realistic style. His works, fitting contemporary tastes, are not repetitions of past generations of artists. Chen’s works never hide his appreciation for the female body, and therefore he leads his audience to rediscover the sexiness and serene beauty of Chinese women.

    Also on display are the fiber art works by Chen’s wife Wang Qingzhen, who is like Chen a teacher with Luxun Academy of Fine Arts.

    The exhibition is open for free to the public.

    Venue: Artron Art Gallery, 63 Meilin Road 8, Futian District

    Buses: 60, B627, N9