{{short description|Chinese contemporary artist (born 1952)}} {{family name hatnote|Shēn|lang=Chinese}} {{Use dmy dates|date=September 2019}} {{Infobox artist | name = Shen Fan | image = | caption = | birth_name = | birth_place = Shanghai, China | death_date = | death_place = | spouse = | field =Chinese Abstraction | training =Shanghai Institute of Technology | movement = | works = | patrons = | awards = | module = {{Chinese |child=yes |title=Shen Fan |c=申凡 |p=Shēn Fán }} }}

'''Shen Fan''' (Chinese: 申凡; born 1952) is a Chinese contemporary artist currently based in Shanghai. He creates work of temperament of the classical Chinese literati arts with intuition.

== Early life == Shen Fan’s childhood years were spent in the countryside. Around the age of ten, he went to Shanghai for study and finished elementary school and middle school. For the following six years, Shen did farm work in the countryside, planting all sorts of corps, and he would practice painting and calligraphy by himself when he was not working. At the end of six years, he went back to Shanghai, where he became a product designer.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Phillips |first1=Christopher |title=Shen Fan Interview |url=http://www.shanghartsingapore.com/gallerysg/texts/id/1067 |publisher=ShangART Singapore |accessdate=17 October 2019}}</ref>

== Career == thumb|Atrium of Shanghai Library East, designed by Shen Fan<ref>{{cite web |title=Shanghai Library East Officially Opens |url=https://www.uapcompany.com/news/shanghai-library-east-and-its-world-class-public-art-program |website=UAP |publisher=UAP |access-date=8 March 2026 |language=en-AU |date=29 September 2022}}</ref> While Shen Fan graduated from the Fine Arts Department of the Shanghai Light Industry Institute (now: Shanghai Institute of Technology) In 1986, the artist began to work in abstract painting around 1982, using such materials as Chinese ink, watercolor and oil paint.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Colman |first1=Julia |title=Chinese Contemporary 96-98 |date=1999 |publisher=Chinese Contemporary |location=London |page=26}}</ref> With the reform and opening-up policies initiated by Deng Xiaoping, the art scene in China underwent a profound change as the sudden availability of Western art publications prompted many artists to adopt the Western style, including abstraction, as a new mode of art creation. Rooting his work in Eastern philosophy in his pursuit of modernity, Shen represents the rich tradition of abstraction in Shanghai as one of its most important and pioneering figures in the art world.

== Style == Shen Fan began disassembling concrete forms and space in painting in the 80s, and started creating abstract painting works. Since the late 1990s, Shen Fan has endeavored to bring Chinese painting elements into a wide variety of mediums and materials including ceramics, neon light, metal, and music, expanding the boundaries between traditional and new media. He is one of the earlier Chinese artists who amalgamate classical aesthetics into the contemporary context to explore contemporary Chinese cultural expressions.<ref>{{cite web |title=SHEN FAN |url=http://www.galleryek.com/artists/shen-fan |publisher=Eli Klein Gallery |accessdate=17 October 2019}}</ref>

Shen Fan’s works are composed of various series with distinctive features, and ever-evolving materials, while maintaining the temperament of the classical Chinese literati arts. His installation works of 2006 go back to Huang Binhong period and re-analyse the use of space and brush strokes of classical Chinese landscape paintings. Through interactions among vision, touch, text and so on, Shen Fan provides an integrated way of viewing, which embodies his shifted and more wholesome viewing logic.

== Selected solo exhibitions == * 1988 ''Shen Fan's Works on Paper'', Shanghai Art Museum, Shanghai, China{{citation needed|date=October 2019}} * 1997 ''Shen Fan'', Consulate General of France, Shanghai, China{{citation needed|date=October 2019}} * 2008 ''I have Been Here'', Usher Gallery; The Collection of Lincoln, Lincoln, UK{{citation needed|date=October 2019}} * 2017 ''Shen Fan: Punctuation - The Second Time'', The Barn Contemporary Art Space, Shenzhen, China<ref>{{cite web |title=SHEN FAN 申凡 |url=https://www.shanghartgallery.com/galleryarchive/artist.htm?artistId=43&section=bio |publisher=ShangART Gallery |accessdate=17 October 2019}}</ref>

== References == {{Reflist}}

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Shen, Fan}} Category:Date of birth missing (living people) Category:Living people Category:1952 births Category:20th-century Chinese male artists Category:20th-century Chinese painters Category:21st-century Chinese male artists Category:21st-century Chinese painters Category:Chinese abstract painters Category:Chinese contemporary artists Category:Chinese male painters Category:Contemporary painters Category:Painters from Shanghai Category:Watercolorists