Kering invites Peng Wei, a Chinese contemporary ink wash artist, to celebrate Chinese New Year

In honor of the upcoming Chinese New Year on January 22^nd, Kering has invited Peng Wei, a female contemporary Chinese ink wash artist, to collaborate on a crossover art project. Peng Wei’s work with Kering merges traditional aesthetics with a modern flair to celebrate a new year of prosperity while conveying the value of biodiversity.

As a luminary of China’s contemporary art circles who earned recognition for ink creations, Peng Wei’s works are executed across artistic mediums, such as painting, installation, video, and animation with methods of traditional Chinese painting and a very contemporary vision.

In this collaboration with Kering, Peng Wei created an interactive work of painting and animation called That Year based on her representative work Letters from a Distance series, which depicts a natural environment full of life yet Zen in harmony.

Hanging vertically, the painting depicts layers of cascading waterfalls and other whimsical touches including a rabbit hopping through high mountain grasses, sika deer navigating over rocky terrain, a bird roosting on leafy branches, and horses drinking from the fresh streams. Perching atop is an ancient couple setting off fireworks, at the top of the mountains. This delicate touch beyond traditional practice perfectly blends the wish of fruitful new year and perspective for the ecological future.

The collaboration with Peng Wei translates Kering’s ambition to drive creativity and explore local narratives. It also reflects the long-lasting Group’s commitment to female artists carried through its signature program Women In Motion that shines a light on women’s contribution to culture and the arts. Since its creation in 2015, Women In Motion has highlighted the creativity and unique talent of women whose work in the fields of arts is transforming our vision of the world. 

Also, this collaboration echoes a hot topic that Kering placed at the heart of its strategy over 15 years ago: pursuing its business activities while taking care of the environment and protecting its biodiversity. Under the “Crafting Tomorrow’s Luxury” signature, the Group has been working on a robust sustainability roadmap to launch concrete initiatives aiming at reducing its impact, restoring biodiversity and engaging its stakeholders in this journey.

Peng’s crossover work can be found on printed Chinese New Year greeting cards, as well as a virtual animation, DIY greeting card kits, an interactive WeChat game, and other digital presentations with a contemporary touch. During this traditional festive season, Kering aims to enrich its connection with Chinese consumers through its vision of Symbiotic Harmony between man and nature in a prosperous new year.

About Peng Wei

Peng Wei, born in 1974 in Chengdu, Sichuan province, currently lives and works in Beijing. She holds a master’s degree in philosophy from Nankai University.

Peng Wei relies on the methods of traditional Chinese painting and a very personal vision. She links traditional ideas to the present and the West, in an effort to find balance between the past and the present. She is widely celebrated for expanding and subverting the classical Chinese ink painting tradition by bringing traditional and historical practice into dialogue with contemporary international art practices. Conjuring extraordinary realities by layering personal narratives across time, geography, and tradition, her work interrogates cultural identity, intellectual belonging, and issues of gender.

Since launching her artistic career with the Stone series in 2000, she has completed numerous series of work including Robe, Good Things come in Pairs, Letters from a Distance, Seven Nights, Hi-Ne-in, We All Need Stories, etc., which are executed across artistic mediums, such as painting, installation, video, and animation, into her practice, making her an innovative and internationally renowned Chinese contemporary ink artist.

Peng Wei has held numerous solo exhibitions in New York, Cleveland, Hong Kong, Taipei, Beijing, Suzhou’s museums, etc. She has also participated in large contemporary art exhibitions in Asia, Europe, North America, and Australia. In 2014, her series Letters from a Distance was selected for the APB Foundation Signature Art Prize at the Singapore Art Museum. She was awarded the Most Outstanding Asian Artist 2022 by CAAC.

Her work has been collected by the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Princeton University Art Museum, the Brooklyn Museum, the M+ Museum HK, the National Art Museum of China, the Hong Kong Museum of Art, the Suzhou Museum, the Guangdong Museum of Art, the He Xiangning Art Museum, the Beijing Fine Art Academy Museum, the Sigg Collection, the DSL Collection, etc.

About Kering

A global Luxury group, Kering manages the development of a series of renowned Houses in Fashion, Leather Goods and Jewelry : Gucci, Saint Laurent, Bottega Veneta, Balenciaga, Alexander McQueen, Brioni, Boucheron, Pomellato, DoDo, Qeelin, as well as Kering Eyewear. By placing creativity at the heart of its strategy, Kering enables its Houses to set new limits in terms of their creative expression while crafting tomorrow’s Luxury in a sustainable and responsible way. We capture these beliefs in our signature: “Empowering Imagination”. In 2021, Kering had over 42,000 employees and revenue of €17.6 billion