Time: April 24- May 31, 2009
Opening: 5pm Friday April 24, 2009
Venue: Xiamen University Art College, CEAC, Xiamen City, Fujian Province
www.ceac99.com

Artist Nick Renshaw was born in Driffield, Yorkshire, UK, and received undergraduate degrees (with Distinction) in England and the Netherlands, and a Master of Arts degree from the Sandberg Institute also in the Netherlands. He has travelled extensively and exhibited, worked and studied in a wide range of institutions, art centers and residencies.

He is in residence at the Chinese European Art Center in Xiamen for the months March to May of 2009. Towards the end of this period he will present work in a solo exhibition that represents important general areas of his artistic practice, incorporating ideas and influences garnered during his time at CEAC and in China.

In his work he makes the distinction between western and oriental thought processes by citing a Jungian explanation.  Eastern thinking is often more holistic, in the sense that it relates to an interconnection between all elements–an organic all-absorbing process. Western rationale however tends to be driven by cause and effect relationships, a more scientific approach, where empirically based rules are constructed and followed. Renshaw’s own interconnectivity, in his view, reflects a parallel with the workings and behavior of Chinese society. His predominantly, and at first seemingly Western perspective and background, in conjunction with this apparently Eastern oriental thought and working process, gives his work a unique character.

The exhibition White Riot visually brings together a number of significant personal ideas and interests. The name itself refers directly to the title of a song, an anthem popular with the punk generation of the late seventies. White Riot was an important symbol, not just in terms of the energetic and positive appeal and creative spirit embellished in the song, but also because of the personal impact this creativity had at an embryonic stage in Renshaw’s own life.

Renshaw’s visual language, for many years, has involved the practical, visual and theoretical use of the material, clay. He has travelled and worked around the world, meeting and sharing ideas with protagonists of this material from a wide variety of cultural perspectives. In his exhibition he emphasis’s the desires of contemporary cultures, mainly those of Eastern and Western societies, by collaborating creatively with a colleague and Chinese porcelain master artist. Thus a porcelain sculpture, based directly on an iconic photographic image of the ‘rock star’, and one directly associated with The Clash, the group responsible for the punk anthem ‘White Riot’ has thus been produced.

This work brings together almost mythically associated porcelain regions of Fujian province (where the work was produced) with ideas of Eastern and Western culture, trade links, aesthetic influences, social interchange, art history and originality. The ideas of originality and devotion are expanded on in other works in the exhibition. Connective drawings and sculptures, surrealistic paintings–drawn from photographic images of ancient porcelain working methods and sculptures, echo and mimic the ideas of desire and the visual language associated herewith.

www.nickrenshaw.com