Oil on canvas

92 × 73 cm. 36 1/4 × 28 3/4 in.

Signed in English and dated on bottom right; signed in English and Chinese, titled in Chinese and dated on the reverse

LITERATURE
2015, SIGN ME/Hybrid Portrait, LYNA Art, Paris, p.213
EXHIBITED
6 – 28 Jun 2015, SIGN ME/Hybrid Portrait, ARTDOOR Gallery, Taipei

PROVENANCE
ARTDOOR Gallery, Taipei
Acquired directly by present private Asian collector from the above

This work is accompanied by a certificate of authenticity issued by Taipei ARTDOOR Gallery signed by the artist

A Poetic Dwelling in Dreams
The Romantic World of Alixe Fu

Born in Taiwan in 1961, the Chinese-French artist Alixe Fu graduated from the Department of Fine Arts of the Chinese Culture University in 1985 and has lived in France since 1987, where he studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. His creations explore one's inner truth, combining the French philosopher Bergson's theory of Intuition and Freud's theory of unconscious, where the metamorphosising subjects flow, overlap, and disperse, constructing a dream-like fantasy world filled with rich, emotional energy. In 1991, the French Ministry of Culture recognised his work and awarded him a studio in Cité Van Gogh, Auvers-sur-Oise in Paris. His works have been exhibited at the Grand Palais, the Centre Pompidou, the Château Royal de Blois in France, and the Today Art Museum in Beijing, among others.

In 1997, Fu developed his most representative series, Plant Man-Animal Man, portraying the surrealist crossing and merging of species boundaries, then broadening his exploration to the living state of human beings. Completed in 2004, Blues (Lot 87) is representative of this series and appeared in his exhibition Sign Me/Hybrid Portraits, which toured in 2015. Dragonfly (Lot 88) is from Fu's sculpture series Sign Me, which he developed over 16 years since 2006. In 2008, a white sculptural work with the same title was exhibited in Auvers-sur-Oise, on the outskirts of Paris, France, proportionally enlarged for the visitors to sign and doodle on it. This performance art-like exhibition became a sensation in France. The sculpture in this auction is a brilliant acrylic work that was part of his 2022 retrospective exhibition, Wheatfields' Whisper.

A Face Emerging from the Green, a Truth Born out of Unconsciousness

In Blues, the protagonist wears a Western-style high-necked dress with her hair worn upwards, just like the woman in Picasso's "Blue Period" masterpiece, Woman in Green. Her dress that shifts between turquoise, green, and yellow merges into the blue and green background, presenting a dynamic and illusory beauty. Her dark eyes, delicate willow-leaf eyebrows, and cherry-red mouth on an oval face exude the sense of ethereality of Oriental poetry. Her floating hair and softly curving body sway weightlessly in the wind like the figures who lightly soar in Chagall's paintings.

The woman's body reflects Fu's iconic Cubist imagination: what seems to be her breasts undulate and overlap with faces among the chromatic geometric shapes, like a blues piece composed of body and memories, travelling through different dimensions in a soothing rhythm. Fu employs a landscape background commonly seen in Western classical portraiture but executes it with abstract brushstrokes, leaving a "white space" like that in traditional ink paintings. The artist composes the overlapping of time and space in a song of blues, creating an incredible mental world from the cohesion and dispersion of physical forms.

A Red Dragonfly Soaring over Green Water

In Dragonfly, with a Cubist perspective, Fu sculpts the human body from multiple angles and fuses them into a single fantastical figure. The figure stands on a green disk, like a pool of water, extends his arms and steps forward with his right foot, which has a spiralling form, as if he is stepping out of a flat, dream-like picture. His upper body is painted in brilliant orange-red like a red dragonfly spreading its wings, which gradually transition and merge into the yellows and greens of his lower body. His face splits dramatically, capturing life's fleeting, ever-changing moments, as if expressing the proverb that reads, "The floating life is like a dream." His right leg and toes turn into a vine-like spiral from which an eye grows out, showcasing the combination of man and nature, a common visual vocabulary in Fu's works. When viewed from behind, the figure's dancing arms emulate gentle waves, extending into the water ripple carvings on his back and then toward his right foot, forming sinuous and tender curves, like an innocent dancer who summons up his soul in the celebration of nature's wonders.

Price estimate:
HKD: 60,000 - 100,000
USD: 7,700 - 12,800

Auction Result:
HKD: 132,000