Otherworldly:

Mucciaccia Gallery London is pleased to announce the exhibition “Cities/worlds without people” featuring international artists Suanjaya Kencut, Daniel Rich and Jingyi Wang.

Despite a very different background, the common trait in the artists’ practice is the playful, colourdense palette used in their works. A gust of fresh air, of hope and optimism and desire to reconnect with others and themselves. The artistic production turns into meditation, where humans revaluate the importance of being social creatures who thrive with the interconnectedness of the species and their surroundings. The rich and saturated colours are used to represent human life with humour and childlike spontaneity.

All three artist reinterpret the space in which people live their lives:

Daniel Rich observes buildings that represent a turning point in time, he paints their geometric forms from unusual perspectives, but edits people out. The constructions seem abandoned, they look timeless. He plays with political power structures and shines a light on how buildings connect with each other, and how they play a pivotal role in history. He understands structure and mass; through his fluid interpretation of landscapes, he portrays cities as living, breathing entities, creating awareness on this fragment of human life. He turns the concrete grey into reverberant, vibrant shades to give the scene a new look, painting a new kind of urban landscape.

Suanjaya Kencut, in contrast, turns the individual into a button-eyed doll, and annihilates the surroundings, as of looking at all from above. The representation of human beings as dolls comes from the desire of recognising all life forms as sacred and re-state how humans are social creatures who thrive from cultivation of support systems like friends and family. Kencut felt disconnected for a prolonged time through the pandemic and adds hope and optimism to the composition through the use of vivid colours and pictorial realism, although the figures he paints are not real.

The same outer representation of humanity through naturalistic painted surreal beings, can be found in the works of Jingyi Wang. The artist merges the human beings with their surroundings, creating natural entities with anthropomorphic forms and portraying a desired harmonised and symbiotic connection between the two worlds. She paints the feeling of loneliness, struggle, blended with resilience and hope, adding to the depiction of familiar forms a relaxing background, almost to reiterate how our lives have changed substantially in the past few years.

The exhibition will run from Wednesday, June 8th to Saturday, July 30th 2022. Summer opening hours: Monday 10am to 2pm, Tuesday to Friday 10am to 6pm, Saturday 10am to 2pm.

For further information please contact: london@mucciaccia.com.

ARTISTS BIOGRAPHIES:

DANIEL RICH (b. 1977 in Ulm, Germany) received his Bachelor of Fine Art degree in 2001 at the Atlanta College of Art in Atlanta, GA. He received his Master of Fine Art degree in 2004 at Tufts University in Medford, MA and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, MA.

He translates photographs into paintings that call attention to implicit political and social narratives transcribed in the built environment. Although the subject matter is politically motivated, he is interested in the power of architecture to function as an icon of our lived experience, a portrait of a particular moment in history of society.

Recent solo and two person exhibitions include Miles McEnery Gallery, New York, NY; “Never Forever,” Peter Blum Gallery, New York, NY; “On a Boat, Looking for Land: Gil Heitor Cortesao & Daniel Rich,” Carbon 12, Dubai, United Arab Emirates; “Systematic Anarchy,” Peter Blum Gallery, New York, NY; “Platforms of Power,” Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA; “Berlin: Daniel Rich and Wieland Speck,” Horton Gallery, New York, NY. His work is included in the permanent collections of Cornell Musuem at Rollins University, Winter Park, FL; Fidelity Investments; Maramotti Collection, Reggio Emilia, Italy; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA; and Wellington Management.
Daniel Rich lives and works in Berlin, Germany.

SUANJAYA KENCUT (b. 1994 in Bali, Indonesia) is an up-and-coming artist with a blended style of modern and traditional art. He pursued his childhood passion to become an artist by enrolling in the Art Institute of Yogyakarta. For all his life, he was always surrounded by art activities starting from the traditional Balinese art through to modern 3D art installations.

His current focal point is bringing dolls to life with his 2-Dimensional artworks, as well as statues and 3D art installations. He regularly starred in group exhibitions since 2012, and in 2019 he had his solo exhibition titled “Kaum Mata Kancing” (Button-Eyed People). Recently, he won the award for “Best Five Artwork Aksi Artsy 2017”. Now based in Yogyakarta, Kencut is making artworks with a unique style, true to his passion. The characters in Kencut’s works are presented like dolls but are actually representations of humans and their lives. These inanimate puppets show a fragment scene of human life that contains a reflection on the current human situation in the hope that people can reflect on themselves through his artworks.

JINGYI WANG (b. 1989 in China) is a New York based visual artist who specialises in oil painting.
She received her BFA degree in oil painting from China Central Academy of Fine Arts in 2013, and she received her MFA degree from New York Academy of Art in 2016.

Observant and perceptive, she combines her excellent sketching ability and imagination to form a new kind of conceptual painting. Her artworks focus on the relationship between nature and culture. Observation and perception is the inspiration source of her artistic creation. She associates the fragile with the acute, the serious with the humorous tones, the poignant with the longing. Through the strong and independent characteristic that the cacti represent, she intends to express the impact that human activities on nature.

She was offered an artist residency at the Terra Foundation of American Art in Giverny, France. Her works had been widely exhibited at Art New York 2017, Sotheby’s New York, the Metropolitan Pavilion, Portraits Inc., Jacob K. Javits Center, Amerasia Bank Gallery, Panepinto Galleries, X gallery etc. Her artworks are widely published at art magazines such as Creativepaper magazine, Art-Maze Mag magazine, Studio Visit magazine.