Wang Guangle, Coffin paint 140729, 2014, acrylic on canvas, 44 7/8 by 89 3/4 inches. Photo courtesy Pace Gallery.
Wang Guangle’s multilayered abstract paintings are a clear demonstration that culture-specificity can coexist with (and sometimes be deeply disguised by) cosmopolitan formalism—a preoccupation with line, shape and color that seems to know no geographic boundaries. The works in this show feature either striations of color, single floating rectangles endowed with the illusion of depth, or speckled evocations of terrazzo tile. These “time paintings” as the 38-year-old graduate of Beijing’s Central Academy of Fine Arts calls them, entail a meditative approach to process—stroke by thoughtful stroke. Some recall the tile floors of his childhood home. Others evoke the Fujian Province custom of adding a coat of red lacquer to one’s own casket each year in a simultaneous celebration of longevity and a reconciliation with death.