Artwork: Waka Poet
Artist: Jin Shien
Year: 2016
Media: Archival inkjet print
Size: 80x60cm
Edition: 12 (over all variable dimensions)
Price: RMB 10,300
Jin Shien has a vision different from others. Among the various places he has been to in the world, his eyes are always attracted to wastelands and trivial details. ‘Wilderness’ serves as an inspiration to his work – either the ones of the urban landscape and the spiritual, narrated in Shuji Terayama’s Ah, Wilderness, or those of the land and the heart, depicted in Robert Frost’s Desert Places. For Shien, the cold and empty wilderness can be revived with warmth and emotion. In his review of Shien’s works, Xu Zhigang comments: ‘Let the wilderness be the entrance and the girl the exit’ – the photographer himself is the ‘and’ in the middle, which builds a delicate connection. In Shien’s works, the reality of ‘wilderness’ is juxtaposed with the imagination of ‘girl‘, and the ‘lost in time’ is always flashed by the ‘instant beauty and glory’. Poetry, literature, and tales have shaped the artist’s ongoing exploration of his own personal and spiritual dreams.
About the Artist
Jin Shien
Born 1983 and currently living and working in Beijing, Jin Shien is an independent photographer and film director who adopts photography with video, graphic work and literature as the major medium for artistic creation. Shien was the director of photography for Harper’s Bazaar-Art and For Him Magazine before completing his transition from a fashion photographer to photographic artist in 2016. In the same year, he created Flatland, a media subscription platform that has enjoyed growing popularity among the public. By 2020, Shien has published two photo books, namely Wild & Girls and Baby Flower, which provide a clear idea about the artist’s unique perception derived from an alternative vision to understand the world, illustrated by the metaphoric and seemingly absurd photographs taken by him.
Shien’s recent solo exhibitions include ‘Fifty, Fifty’ at Fosun Foundation, Shanghai in 2018 and ‘Love · Nonsense’ at Three Shadows Photography Art Centre, Beijing & Xiamen in 2020. His works have also been exhibited in a number of art spaces and projects, such as ‘Wild Chronicles’, Beijing World Art Museum, 2016; ‘Reunion’, White Field, Beijing, 2020; ‘An
Abundant Image World’, Mixc+Art, Xiamen, 2021. Since 2022, Shien has embarked on his latest project of video art, entitled ’Translucent Universe’.
About the Gallery
Three Shadows +3 Gallery (Beijing & Xiamen)
Three Shadows +3 Gallery aims to provide a professional model for promoting and guiding China’s homegrown artists, and offer opportunities to the public to better understand and recognize the excellent photography produced in China. To this end, +3 Gallery aims to foster the further development of informed collecting of photography in China. The future of Chinese photography is bright, but more can be done to support its healthy development. The time is ripe for a space like Three Shadows +3 Gallery, where appreciation for art photography and original prints stands at the fore. The gallery provides professional artwork and market management to both artists and collectors in its endeavor to strengthen Chinese photography overall.
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