![Jia Aili: Human Nature](https://gagosian.com/media/images/quarterly/jia-aili-human-nature-interview/5C0iwhp1moYH_300x300.jpg)
Jia Aili: Human Nature
The artist speaks with the Quarterly about interrogating perceptions, questioning illusions, and the primacy of intuition.
Art is the light of the spirit. It enlightens the dust of the mind.
—Jia Aili
Gagosian is pleased to present Combustion, Jia Aili’s first exhibition in New York, and with the gallery.
A central figure in contemporary art in China, Jia creates dynamic compositions that both emerge from and challenge art historical assumptions in the context of a rapidly changing world. In his epic tableaux, which move between genre painting, portraiture, fantasy, and abstraction, he reflects on the dramatic modernization of society while probing the vulnerabilities of the existential human condition. New meaning emerges out of this interweaving of disparate narratives.
The exhibition includes twenty-nine paintings from the past ten years, grouped into four sections to trace the evolution of Jia’s oeuvre. In the four-panel Sonatine (2019), condensed polyhedrons move through the air, filled with autonomous scenes related to Jia’s earlier paintings. Like musical notes, colors are emancipated from their illusionistic and representational functions while multidimensional shapes tessellate into a cohesive whole—as the title suggests “small sonatas” visually unfolding. Jostling against each other, the abstract planes and anonymous figures seem to suggest a new internal realm where traditional perspective is fragmented and replaced with a timeless panoramic view: a future landscape of grafted, inchoate memories.
The artist speaks with the Quarterly about interrogating perceptions, questioning illusions, and the primacy of intuition.
Jia Aili speaks with curator Philip Tinari about his arts education, his working process, and his desire to expand the talking points around painting.
This video presents a behind-the-scenes look at Jia Aili’s studio in Beijing. He elaborates on his in-progress works, the complexity of his compositions, as well as his philosophies of and motivations for painting.
Curator Shen Qilan speaks with the artist about his latest works.
The Spring 2019 issue of Gagosian Quarterly is now available, featuring Red Pot with Lute Player #2 by Jonas Wood on its cover.