Shen Wei Guidance 2, 2019

This sensuous self-portrait is from the latest by Chinese-American photographer Shen Wei, entitled A Season Particular. The new body of work, exploring notions of gender, form and desire, is reflective of the photographer’s ambition to ‘find the spiritual and abstract similarities between our bodies and nature, emphasising the harmony, fragility and interconnectedness of both.’ 

Shen Wei is renowned for his examination of sexuality, identity and memory through his intimate portraits of others and himself, in part a response to his conservative upbringing in Shanghai.  He has been exhibited internationally, with venues including the Museum of the City of New York, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Moscow Museum of Modern Art, the North Carolina Museum of Art, and the He Xiangning Art Museum. His work has been featured in publications such as The New Yorker, Aperture, ARTnews, American Photo, EXIT, Photo District News, and Wall Street Journal. His work is included in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the J. Paul Getty Museum, the Museum of Contemporary Photography, the Florida Museum of Photographic Arts, the Library of Congress, the Carnegie Museum of Art, the Museum of Chinese in America, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and the Kinsey Institute. He is a recipient of the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center Arts Residency, the Asian Cultural Council Arts & Religion Fellowship, the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council Arts Grant, and the Urban Artist Initiative NYC Fellowship.