-- Artist statement
Last year, a friend of mine showed me 50 old photos of Shanghai he had found from untique market, developed from several old rolls of film, and wondered who they were. These photos inspired me, and I used them as the main characters to create a new series.
In one of the photos, the woman is surrounded by flowers call Manjusaka. In Chinese, the name of the flower has a special meaning: the flower is on both sides of the river between life and death.
In January this year, I finished this work with a large-scale industrial scanner, which is my first attempt to use technology other than camera to make “image”. I want to use this work to talk about the existence and extinction of life, the memory and forgetting in time.
Maleonn (whose real name Maliang, 马良) was born in 1972, Shanghai, China. He entered Shanghai Huashan Art School when he was 12 years old. He then went to Fine Art College of Shanghai University, majored in Graphic design. By 1995, he has completed his art study of 11 years. After graduation, he went into the world of advertisement and became a director of commercial filming. During this period of his career, he has won golden award of the China International Advertising Festival twice.
In 2004, Maleonn quit his previous job and started his career as an artist, creating graphic art by the media of photography, as well as drawing and installation art. In 2012, Maleonn started his public art project, the Studio Mobile. He put his photo studio into two mini vans, and travelled through China for 10 months, taking free portraits for 1,600 strangers in 35 cities. The event has led to a nation-wide attention to this very artist, and created enthusiastic discussion on the internet. Maleonn now lives and works in Shanghai, China.
