Shen Shaomin
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Shen Shaomin (born 1959, Heilongjiang Province, China) is an artist based in Sydney and Beijing.
He has exhibited internationally in many important shows including the 2006 Liverpool Biennial [1], "Mahjong" at Kunstmuseum Bern [2] in Switzerland and "Dialogue" at East West Gallery [3] in Melbourne.
Constructed from real animal bones, Shen Shaomin’s sculptures collectively create a bestiary of fictional creatures that are wondrous, frightening, and strange. Reminiscent of Borges’s Book of Imaginary Beings, Shen’s absurd assemblages exude an ancient wisdom, authenticating the magic of fable and folklore, while alluding to contemporary issues of genetic modification, consequence of environmental threat, and concepts of the alien and exotic. Shen adopts the role of being anthropologist, scientist, and author of his own fabricated mythologies.
In pieces such as ‘Three Headed Monster’ and ‘Mosquito’, the skeletal remains of ‘extinct’ creatures are presented with the validity of museum display. Their colossal scale reinforces their imagined prehistoric origin as Jurassic curiosities and spiritual totems. Assembled from genuine ossified animal parts, his creatures are simultaneously familiar and perplexing, indicating a warped and uncomfortable process of evolution. Often carving into his surfaces, Shen adorns his creations with scrimshaw, further entwining humanistic reference into his disturbing zoological evidence.
