Background
Shen Jiawei was born in Shanghai and emigrated to Australia in 1989.
Shen Jiawei was born in Shanghai and emigrated to Australia in 1989.
He was largely self-taught and became popular with the Chinese government for his "revolutionary" images of workers and soldiers. His best known work from that period, "Standing Guard for Our Great Motherland" (1974) was subsequently shown in the Guggenheim Museum, both in New York and Bilbao, in the China: 5000 Years exhibition, 1998. Shen is also a painter of large-scale history pictures represented in major public collections.
Including the National Art Gallery of China and the Museum of the Chinese Revolution in Beijing.
His more playful works examine political and cross-cultural issues through appropriation. "Absolute Truth" (2000) shows Mikhail Gorbachev and the Pope conversing in the Sistine Chapel and in "Wise Men from the East" (2002) the Magi in Leonardo da Vinci"s unfinished Adoration of the Magi are Chinese sages.
Recent portraits include former Melbourne Lord Mayor John So in a possum skin cloak (2003), the Honorary Tom Hughes Association for the Study of Internal Fixation Queen's Counsel, the portrait of Crown Princess Mary of Denmark (2005) which hangs in the National Portrait Gallery, Canberra and the portrait of John Howard former Prime Minister of Australia which hangs in the Members" Hall of the Australian Parliament House as part of the Historic Memorials Collection.
Shen and some of his work featured in the 2001 Australian documentary "Yum Cha Cha", directed by Boyd Britton.
Shen"s wife Lan Wang is also a painter, as well as sculptor.
