Liven Zeng is an international young artist and curator active in Hong Kong, Mainland China and Europe. He is also a member of the Asia Pacific Youth Art Association. He studied and graduated from the Printmaking Department of the Academy of Fine Arts in Bari, Italy, and currently serves as the commercial director of PORTAL, an international artist and designer agency in the Greater Bay Area. While Liwen Zeng is expanding his personal art career, he also serves as an art manager to help many outstanding artists and designers at home and abroad plan their personal development and artistic activities.

This year, Liwen Zeng, as a participating artist, participated in the 2023 Florence Contemporary Art Exchange Exhibition and the first Santa Maria del Fiore Art Week hosted by the Italian National Art Association and hosted by ISOLART Youshanlu Gallery with his printmaking and digital art creation "Receipt".

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<receipt> exhibition site

Liwen Zeng has rich experience in exhibition participation and curation: he was invited to serve as a judge for the Asia-Pacific Youth Art Competition in 2022, participated in the Potala Palace Residency Creative Research Team Art Project in 2021, and participated in the Francesico Artist Curation in Perugia, Italy in 2016 group; exhibitions he has participated in include but are not limited to the 2020 FUNSPACE art exhibition hosted by the Science and Education Office of the Embassy of the People's Republic of China in Italy at the Funspace Art Gallery in Rome, and the 2019 Italian Mona Lisa International Art Festival, where he won a bronze medal , and the 2018 Salento International Design Festival in Italy; the exhibitions he co-curated with his team include the 2022 Guangzhou Fangsuo Rongbaozhai Woodblock Watermark Exhibition and the Central Academy of Fine Arts Year of the Rabbit Print Exhibition, and the 2020 Seventh China Illustration Biennale , Global Illustration Industry Conference.

In fact, Liwen Zeng's artistic identity is comprehensive. He not only created a large number of contemporary art works using his skillful printmaking skills, but also made full efforts for art market research and art commercialization. In recent years, he has paid great attention to and explored the development direction of trendy art and art brands, and has in-depth cooperation with many European and American luxury brands and trendy IPs around the world.

Migrating Birds Series

Migrating Birds Series

Migrating Birds Series

Migrating Birds Series

In this exhibition, the ISOLART gallery team also conducted a personal interview with Liwen Zeng himself. The following is the content of this interview:

ISOALRT Manager: Hello Mr. Liwen Zeng, I am very happy to invite you to participate in the 2023 Florence Contemporary Art Exchange Exhibition. I believe that through our artist interviews, more Italian and Chinese art lovers and friends who follow our ISOLART gallery can learn about your artistic concepts. Our art exhibition is held in Florence, Italy, which happens to be a country you are very familiar with. I wonder if you can share your stories and experiences with us?

Liwen Zeng: I’m a great organizer. I’m very honored to be able to participate in this exhibition. It’s a great fate. I have also been studying art in Italy for four years, majoring in printmaking. I studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Bari, and Florence is a city I am very familiar with and visit often. I have many artistic and local friends in Italy, and I have also had many wonderful learning and living experiences. Because I also studied printmaking in Italy, I used a combination of printmaking and digital art to create this creation.

ISOALRT Manager: I see, can you tell us about your creative concept for the works in this exhibition?

Liwen Zeng: Of course. The title of this digital print is "Receipt". The creative concept is about satirizing consumerism in society. What it wants to express is that in today's society, our daily necessities, food, clothing, housing and transportation are always shrouded in the haze of consumerism. The vast majority of consumption behaviors of most people in society are for the sake of dignity and the pursuit of unrestrained material enjoyment and entertainment. Receipts were originally tools we created to serve ourselves, but now they have trapped many people in the quagmire of consumerism. Receipts under the "magnifying glass" are no longer cold text symbols, but you, me and him, all living beings - — “We” are all trapped in consumerism.

ISOALRT Manager: That is indeed the case. I fully agree with your point of view. The concept of consumerism in contemporary society has penetrated into all aspects of people's thinking patterns and daily behaviors from the nature of service. Your work "Receipt" is also exhibited in this exhibition in a huge and unusual size, which seems to fit in with the concept of "magnifying glass" you mentioned.

Liwen Zeng: Indeed, I think that in contemporary art, the way of art exhibition is as important as the form of the work and the concept of the work itself to a certain extent.

ISOALRT Manager: To put it another way, the exhibition method is also a reflection of our curators’ artistic works. In addition, we actually want to know more about your artistic career. How did you develop step by step from a newly graduated art student to a versatile artist and art manager today?

Liwen Zeng: Regarding art work, I have actually experienced various attempts and transformations. After I graduated, I returned to China. My first job was as the President Secretary of the only Illustration Association in China. I worked on how to commercialize and promote illustrations in China, so that more outstanding illustrators and students can have more ways to do business. We will cooperate with Chinese publishing houses, universities and Chinese enterprises to provide outstanding illustrators with visual upgrades and excellent works. Later, we will serve as the commercial director of Portal, an agency for artists and designers in Hong Kong, and explore more We strive to explore how art and fashion can be commercialized and link more outstanding international designers and artists to commercialization. We also have business dealings with Agustina, the former Gucci printing director. In addition to contemporary art works, I also We also create trendy creations in the direction of public aesthetics, such as the "Casey" series and the "bond" series, which are co-branded and promoted with European and American brands. We will also carry out offline promotion at the Paris Olympics. I hope everyone will pay more attention to it, and I also hope to cooperate with the Italian country. The Art Association and ISOLART Youshanlu Gallery will carry out more artistic exchanges and business cooperation in the future!

ISOALRT Manager: We are also looking forward to other cooperation with you in exhibitions and art activities in the future! Thank you very much for being able to complete the artist interview with us today, so today’s interview will end here. Thank you again for your participation, and we look forward to your future cooperation with our gallery and association!