Guan Weiwei

SILENCE

Mayao Art Gallery - Hong Kong
2026, Aug. 1 - Sep. 12

Curated by Larys Frogier and Jules Chua, SILENCE is the first international exhibition of the emerging artist Guan Weiwei.
SILENCE unravels brand new series of paintings and sculptures exploring the subtle nature of the image and its power to question the concept of time and space. Fascinated by the power of black color as borderless horizons opened to the unknown, Guan Weiwei’s art brings to light silence as a creative practice of life beyond reality and any form of limitation. Silence is not still life. Silence is alive.

Born in Shanxi in 1986 and currently living in Beijing, Guan Weiwei is a graduate from the Printmaking Department of Tianjin Academy of Fine Arts in 2014. While studying lithography, the young artist was exploring the rich qualities of black ink and its infinite manifestations onto the paper surface. Since 2022, the artist decided to embark on just a black and white journey, omitting colors from his future creations. He prefers to just see the overly colored and chaotic world with just a few.
The initial research and development progressively lead Guan Weiwei to painting by implementing a very unique and meticulous technique, which combines black-dyed linen, paper, acrylic, pencil and sometimes the silver leaf. After mounting paper onto the stretched linen canvas, Guan Weiwei starts by mixing acrylic paint with quartz sand that are then spread onto the surface, conveying to this new area fascinating textures of roughness, matte deep absorption and light reverberation. Guan Weiwei will then make use of pencils of varying hardness and blackness initiate a fastidious and long process of coloring, shaping and shading his sketches. The subjects represented in his artworks relate to landscape, domestic space, life-forms in resting, architectonic elements, daily objects and body parts. However, all of these topics are reduced to their minimal expression in order to touch straight onto the power of a silent but profound resonance of the image with memory and fantasy. Moreover, through acts of friction and resistance between the pencil and the sanded acrylic surface, the artist will gradually let the image emerge by applying textures and visual effects ranging from deep matte absorption, luminescent effects, gradient colored shades or striking rays of light.

Revisiting the acts of painting and drawing beyond their usual definitions and mediums, Guan Weiwei's art is a quiet but proactive journey of exploration into the depths of the soul. Indeed, silence in art is not simply the absence of image, sound or narration. It is a philosophical, political and spiritual condition that creates space for contemplation, memory, and resistance. Across modern and contemporary art, silence has functioned as a strategy to challenge dominant narratives, inviting active participation, and foreground what cannot be easily represented. Silence can be understood in several interconnected ways such as contemplation: Guan Weiwei creates quiet but extended fields of perception that encourage slow looking and reflection, allowing viewers to become aware of their own presence and perception. If figures are missing details, it is to ensure that rising horizons and expanded areas where loss, memory, traces of history and hope can be rearticulated. Guan Weiwei’s art rejects spectacle, consumerism, and the constant demand for explanation: silence becomes a path toward transcendence and inner awareness.