A current student at Adelaide Central School of Art, emerging artist Jingwei Bu has captivated audiences in recent years with her highly personal and contemplative art practice. Bu was first trained in the Chinese traditional technique of charcoal powder portrait drawing as a teenager, and later at a contemporary artist atelier in Germany, providing the technical underpinnings of her varied practice.
For Bu, artmaking is an extension of everyday life, informed and inspired by all of its minor and more significant goings-on. Encompassing the modalities of performance, installation, multimedia and works on paper, her thought-provoking works reflect her ongoing philosophical inquiry into themes such as the nature of being, the impermanence of life, and natural and manmade ecosystems. Her intuitive mark-making is guided by the study of Buddhist teachings, connection to nature, and an instinct for artistic risk-taking and spontaneous experimentation. Movement, informed by her study of tai chi, adds an additional dimension and duration to object-based installations. Bu’s meditation on issues of time, space and materiality in the context of culture and identity are a welcome salve for the world-weary spectator.
Featured image: Jingwei Bu with her work Material Habitats. Film still of art performance. Courtesy: the artist.