Maleonn

Shanghai artist Maleonn has been engaged in photography-based art only since 2004, following a career as a short-film maker. Craig Scott Gallery became Maleonn's first gallery (in late 2005) and continues to represent him and place his works with collectors worldwide. Since his inaugural May 2006 Transfigurations show at Craig Scott Gallery, much of note has happened that justifies understanding Maleonn not only as one of the most exciting and important photography-based artists working in China today but also as an artist who has made his mark worldwide in very short order. Maleonn’s work has generated a steady stream of recognition and accolades.

Just prior to the Craig Scott Gallery 2006 show in Toronto, Maleonn had been profiled in the “City of Dreams” program within the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and New York Times’ jointly produced series CHINA RISES. Three months after the 2006 show, “Chinese Story No 2” (edition of 2, extra-large size), one of the works on display during the show, for 144,000 $HK (over $US 20,000) at Sothebys Hong Kong’s Contemporary Asian Art Auction – almost certainly amongst the highest prices ever fetched for a photographic work by a just-emerging photographer. As Peter Goddard of the Toronto Star (the largest-circulation newspaper in Canada) had already written in April 2007, Maleonn is the "reigning fabulist among today's new crop of photographers with an almost child-like imagination producing lyrical digital fantasies.” In the that same year, the Frist Centre for the Visual Arts in Nashville mounted a major exhibition drawn from the Pantheon of contemporary Chinese photography, called “Whispering Wind: Recent Photography from China”. Maleonn’s “Chinese Story No 8” was selected to join works from a select group of China’s top photographers including Zhang Huan, Xing Danwen, Dodo Jin Meng, Rong Rong, Zhang Dali, and Lin Tianmiao.