Faye Wei Wei @ Cob Gallery

Faye Wei Wei’s bold, poetic works quiver with a lively, lyrical motion, combining classical poise with vibrant immediacy. Working on a large scale, Wei Wei conceives of the painting process as an intimate choreography between actual and pictorial space. Often revolving around spiritual iconography and classical myth, love rituals and the theatricality of gender, her works sometimes suggest the themes of particular mythic narratives, and at other moments seem to depart into a more ambiguous, interior space of incongruity and uncertainty. Stateliness coincides with brute force and pastel softness; symbols seem to shake free of their moorings and float, surrealistically, on the liquid expanse of dream. The scenes might be imagined, but the energetic, bold brushstrokes, executed in thin layers, suggest something actually witnessed, balanced on the edge of reality.