Exhibition View of “Timberverse: Kang Jianfei Solo Exhibition” at One Art Museum in 2025.

In April, 2025, “Timberverse: Kang Jianfei Solo Exhibition” was presented at One Art Museum in Beijing. Curated by contemporary art theorist and curator Gao Minglu, Professor Emeritus at the University of Pittsburgh, this exhibition covers Professor Kang’s 54 pieces/groups of representative works at different stages of his oeuvre, outlining a complete and clear trajectory of his artistic exploration with “opening boundaries” as the internal driving force.

Kang Jianfei summed up the clues contained in the exhibition in this way, “The first one is the printmaking itself, the second one is teaching, and life is another one. Through this exhibition, I also have a review and reflection on my past ego. Confucius said, “At fifty, I knew the mandate of heaven,” “Timberverse” is reminiscent of its Chinese homonym “wood has been made into a boat”(what’s done is done), so that this exhibition contains the artist’s sense of readily accepting his fate when he conceded in retrospect.

Exhibition View of “Timberverse: Kang Jianfei Solo Exhibition” at One Art Museum in 2025.

The exhibition anchors the original chronological clue of his works to the monochrome woodcut “Flying”. This was a finished “assignment” when he was an undergraduate student at the Printmaking Department of CAFA, and it was also his first creative print. In “Flying”, Kang Jianfei started his first printmaking tentative, he experimented with tools typically used in copperplate etching, “the significance of this experiment is not only to present a more detailed effect, but also to gain the experience of ‘appropriating tools’, and thus sowing the seeds ‘pushing the boundaries of arts’.”

Flying, Woodcut, 50×70cm, 1995.Origami series 2·The West Wing Story, Water-based woodblock printing, 31×55.5cm, 1996.

Like the strict process that needs to be adhered to in printmaking creation and training, Kang Jianfei’s subsequent creative exploration also contains a certain rational pleasure that follows the logic of creation. Since “Net”(1996), the artist has created some net-like “dot plates” and used the same plate repeatedly in one image to create a rich visual effect. Subsequently, in “Repeated Combinations”(1997-1998), he used collage techniques to present prints that rely on printing to produce “plurality”. In the colorful and subtle “Untitled” series (2001), bark paper is overlaid to highlight the concept of “layers” implied in printmaking. In “Where is Not IKEA”(2007), the artist’s woodcut installation on a rolling pin further liberated the work from the concept of “plate”.

The Net series, Water-based woodblock printing, 100×100cm, 1996.

The Owl, Monochrome woodcut, 30×20cm, 1999.Holy Feast, Woodcut, 180×270cm, 2000.Stage No.6, Oil on canvas, 200×300cm, 2006.Where is Not IKEA, Woodcut on rolling pin, Variable size, 2007.

For more than ten years, the artist has been dismantling all aspects of printmaking with great interest, expanding his creative potential of printmaking processes such as printmaking, paper, engraving methods, printing methods, and so on, trying to explore the technical limits of each process in printmaking and pushing the printmaking “boundary” step by step. Since 2008, the series “Ways of Looking at a Blackbird” has been gradually expanded from a series of printed works to a series of installations with stage elements, the interactive art performance “Guanlan Project”, an interactive app, sculptures, and the short performance documentary “A Temporary Journey”. As Kang Jianfei said in his autobiography, the whole process is “when the idea of one medium is being completed, and the idea of the next medium is emerging...”, so far, printmaking has become the starting point for him to think and create infinite possibilities. In this way, Kang Jianfei broke through from the inner to the outside of printmaking, and printmaking has gradually became the “lead” for him to start new experiments, and showed an increasingly open trend in terms of materials and concepts.

Ways of Looking at a Blackbird, Exhibition View of “Timberverse: Kang Jianfei Solo Exhibition” at One Art Museum in 2025.

As the artist says, his most fundamental motivation is to see “how far he can go with the potential of the printmaking medium itself” in continuous art experiments. While breaking through the boundaries of printmaking, he depicts the significance of printmaking medium in the present. The “Art as Medium” series, which began in 2010, and the “Printmaking Drift Project”, which began in 2013, respectively discussed the ontological value, publicity, and existential significance of printmaking from the tension between the “handiwork” of printmaking and digital reproduction technology, as well as the dissemination of printmaking.

Nostalgic Provincialism, Woodcut print, 200×600cm, 2010-2011.Printmaking Drift Project, Exhibition View of “Timberverse: Kang Jianfei Solo Exhibition”at One Art Museum in 2025.

Since 2018, Kang Jianfei began to re-examine timber (wood), an “old friend”, with a new vision, and he authentically realized the essential power of wood. Until the artist stayed at Dongjiang, Tianjin, the leftovers of the carved woodblock used by the laser engraving machine fascinated him with the texture, and Kang Jianfei realized that wood, as the most basic part of printmaking, had always been underestimated.”

Every Moment Counts, Woodcut, watercolor, mixed media, 188.5×114.5cm, 2021.

Centered around the wood itself, the wood-veneer installation “Beyond Being” series, which was created in 2022, has become Kang Jianfei’s foremost creative breakthrough in recent years. Taking 2018 as a watershed, the artist hopes to liberate the board from the image and process, which ceases to revolve around printmaking, but he excavates the concept of “layers” implied in the board, and explore the relatively independent concepts and aesthetic values such as the unique toughness and hidden contingency of wood.

Beyond Being No.5, Wooden frame, linen, wood veneer, fishhooks and fish lines, acrylics, 200×200cm, 2022.

Status, Exhibition View of “Timberverse: Kang Jianfei Solo Exhibition” at One Art Museum in 2025.

From traditional printmaking to wood itself, wood has unconsciously constituted almost all of Kang Jianfei’s artistic universe. In the following interview conducted by CAFA ART INFO, Kang Jianfei shares his latest thoughts on his creative career; his creations related with wood that stretched for decades; the influence of printmaking teaching at CAFA on his creation; the intrinsic dynamics and future possibilities in his creative changes. Upon entering a creative stage with more freedom, what new “boundaries” will Kang Jianfei push and challenge?

Portrait of Kang Jianfei

Born in Tianjin in 1973, Kang Jianfei graduated from the Printmaking Department of CAFA and he is currently a professor at the Printmaking Department of CAFA.

CAFA ART INFO: Through the review of this exhibition, what are the most important breakthroughs in your creative career?

Kang Jianfei: From the perspective of my creative process so far, the breakthroughs and changes at each stage are derived from the previous stage of research. The most important creative phase probably took place in the three years from 2017 to 2019. Prior to this, I continued to break through the creative path of printmaking itself, but I still revolved around printmaking, so I had been confused for a while.

So I decided to make a new attempt to create a mixed media that pays more attention to the woodblock itself. Around 2018, when  I saw the machine-carved woodblock at Dongjiang, I think I could do something with this kind of board. When I peeled off the first layer of plywood, I was fascinated by the unknown but beautiful traces of the adhesive strips and colors and I felt that I could continue to explore.

At the end of 2019, I held a solo exhibition “Temporary Stage” at the China Printmaking Museum in Shenzhen to further explore the creation of wood panels. I use materials such as paintings on paper and canvas, wood panels, and painting boxes to conceive, create, and arrange exhibitions on an ad hoc basis. When I put these materials together in the exhibition hall on an improvisatory basis, I suddenly realized a new relationship.

From “Stage” (2007) featuring oil paintings, to “Temporary Stage” (2019), I began to perceive a new temporality as I aged: perhaps there is no eternity, and between life and death, everything is only in a temporary state. Therefore, in the “Temporary Stage”, I adopted a more accidental creative method, which became one of my most important creative nodes.

Temporary Stage No.5, Acrylic on canvas, wood carving, Variable size, 2019.

Installation View of “Temporary Stage” in 2019.

CAFA ART INFO: You show the influence of your family on your creation from the very beginning of this exhibition, and you also said that after a certain age, you began to perceive the great influence of your early life experience on your creation, and even felt the real existence of fate, how did this perception appear?

Kang Jianfei: On the surface, growing up in a family of troupe has had a direct impact on my creativity, but maybe it has something to do with my genes. For example, my mother is a theater actress, and she has different professional habits from that of film actors, just like Prof. Gao Minglu, described me as having a “very exquisite” quality in the old saying of Tianjin. In this exhibition, I suddenly realized what “exquisiteness” means to me, and perhaps the influence from my family is not only the sense of drama that permeates many of my works, but also the intrinsic connection between my works and the stage.

It was only at this age that I began to perceive more dramatically the influence of my parents. From another perspective, this understanding may help me in my future life and creativity.

Portrait of Kang Jianfei’s MotherA Performance Still including Kang Jianfei’s Mother

CAFA ART INFO: How do you feel this “exquisite” character is manifested in your creation?

Kang Jianfei: Sometimes I don’t really understand the “academicism” that people talk about, but now I feel that something is emerging. Just as the artists trained by academies are more concerned with modesty, paying attention to elegant perspective, even if they sometimes ignore the appeal of their works.

In this exhibition, I also received a lot of feedback, which triggered some of my recent thoughts, such as I do often feel entangled between expression and form, and whether the artists trained by academies are not “ruthless” enough in their creations or not. Perhaps it’s because artists with academic backgrounds instinctively think about more harmonious compositional relationships.

Status, Installation, plank, Dimensions variable, Exhibition View of “Timberverse: Kang Jianfei Solo Exhibition” at One Art Museum in 2025.

In the past, I thought that painting was like dealing with people, dealing with relationships, and we needed to deal with all aspects. But now I feel that I can be a little more “ruthless” in my future creations. Those works with “steady, accurate and ruthless” features, such as Xu Bing’s works, are both clear and intelligent. We can be touched by Kiefer’s paintings, even if it is difficult to summarize the core of his work in concise terms. In the midst of entanglement, something interesting can also emerge. Chaos happens because sometimes we want to have too many conditions for a single work at the same time. Just like Xichuan commented, “Excellence is the enemy of greatness.”

Reflection does not mean that I create from a completely conceptual way, but it does inspire me and help me a lot in teaching, helping my students to be more clear about the purpose of their creation. The most annoying question for a student or artist is, “What do you want to express in this work?” But now I think that whether we can make one thing clear or even extreme is also a creative idea that can be referenced.

800G, Installation, books, Dimension variable, 2014.

CAFA ART INFO: What “quality” do you prefer to wood products? What aspects are you trying to exploit in your work?

Kang Jianfei: I have a classmate from the primary school, and we are still friends now. The friendship between us is like that between me and wood, so I put it down to a state of fatalism.

This is also related to the growing environment of those who were born in the 1970s, at that time wood was the easiest material for us to obtain and handle. My father was in charge of group printmaking training at the Cultural Center in Tianjin, and many of the wooden substitutes in my family were made by my father.

Kang Jianfei was in engaged in mass art work in the 1970s.Kang Yongming and Kang Jianfei (My Communication with My Father), Ink on paper, prints, woodcuts, original sketches of stage design, album, wooden box, 150cm×400cm, 1965-2020.

But before 2018, I underestimated wood. Previously, I used it as a material, but from another point of view, wood is not necessary for printmaking, and it can be replaced by hemp plate and cardboard. From 2017 through to 2019, the relationship between wood and me changed dramatically. For me, the determining factor of the work is no longer the form, but the wood itself. I began to refine the independent aesthetic of wood, and the relationship between wood and me changed again, it is not only the closest material to me, but also the most convincing material for me in terms of its own texture, toughness, thickness and other material characteristics. For example, I have to use wood veneer in “Beyond Being” series, as only wood has this toughness and the possibility of breaking, and the material characteristics become the most important and irreplaceable factor in the process of conceptual germination.

CAFA ART INFO: You have been experimenting with art to boldly explore how far you can go with printmaking, and in recent years, especially with the wood-veneer installation “Beyond Being”, you have further broken the printmaking expression, does this mean that you are trying to push boundaries and change another course?

Kang Jianfei: Wood board was originally a material for my drawing and carving. After I have researched the expressive ways, I began to use “boards” to convey thoughts and feelings, such as I have studied the relationship between printmaking as a subject and society in “Printmaking Drift Project”. Then I found that in the process of working with the “board”, the wood is at the core, but it is not the key, in a series of complex processes such as grinding, drawing, re-sanding, waxing, hardening, carving, and so on.

Therefore, when I created the series “Ways of Looking at a Blackbird” between 2005 and 2010, I began to pay more attention to the beauty of the wood itself, highlighting the subjectivity of the wood itself. Starting from the action of “carving”, I try to return to the work itself, explore the metaphors that may be contained in the action, and explore the difference between the participation of body in woodcut and other creations.

Birdman Series, Woodcut on bark paper, 21.5×30cm, 2006.

Before 2018, wood was still a medium of images for me. Until the end of 2018, I studied the pile of plates brought back from Tianjin at home every day, and I loved the random traces inside the plates. During the pandemic, I rarely went out of my studio, trying a lot of collages that fused painting, sculpture and mixed media, and I still thought about the veneers I have ordered. When “Beyond Being” was exhibited in 798 District, many visitors asked me why I used fishing lines and hooks to hang the veneers, and I attributed it to the subconscious inspiration from my experience when I often went fishing with my father. What’s more important, I had to participate in the process of bending the veneer, exploring the most subtle limits of toughness between folding and not bending.

Peel No.1, Wood board, acrylic, carving 177×100cm, 2023.About Essence No.1, Wood veneer collage, acrylic, carving, 181×272cm, 2024-2025.Exhibition View of “Timberverse: Kang Jianfei Solo Exhibition” at One Art Museum in 2025. Photo by Zhang Chao.Installation View of Status, “Timberverse: Kang Jianfei Solo Exhibition” at One Art Museum in 2025.

The working logic is deduced step by step, and what should I do next? It is possible to go with the flow or to have a reversal attitude towards fate. Should I try to create an extremely self-disciplined style? For example, it is stipulated that only one board can be carved for five years, and other ideas must be sealed to see if something new can be excavated in one thing. Of course, this may be a misconception. The key question is still， what is the purpose of making art?

From prints to boards, to veneer, printmaking has played many roles and sometimes it works as a aim for me over the past 30 years. If the material is A, what I did in the past was to make A become B, and then C. But what I’m going to do now is to present the result of the contest and relationship between me and A, which may be the main point of my future creation.

CAFA ART INFO: You’ve been trying to push the boundaries of printmaking, so is artificiality no longer an insurmountable boundary in your work?

Kang Jianfei: Artists who have graduated from the Central Academy of Fine Arts attach great importance to their craft, and craft can almost be said to be the complex. If I take my current path to the extreme, in a sense, I will become a conceptual artist. But I think there is no contradiction between handicraft and concept. Further down, my works may be more related to thinking and more distant to hands. Of course, it is difficult to decide, and in recent years, it has become popular to “declutter”, but how to “declutter” for non-materialized things, such as craftsmanship?

Exhibition View of “Timberverse: Kang Jianfei Solo Exhibition” at One Art Museum in 2025.

CAFA ART INFO: You graduated from the Printmaking Department of CAFA and have been teaching there for many years, what are the teaching concepts, methods and characteristics of the Printmaking Department that influence your creative exploration?

Kang Jianfei: When we were enrolled in the Printmaking Department of CAFA, Prof. Yu Chen asked us to draw line drawings instead of all-factor sketches. The influence of the teaching methods instructed by the Printmaking Department on us may have been planted at that time, and it was later reflected in my paintings, such as my sensitivity to contours.

Students from the Printmaking Department are instinctively sensitive to contours, which is also the influence of the fundamental course. When I started learning to make a woodblock printing, from sketching to woodcut, I have undergone a very complicated work procedure. Printmaking is a technique that people can master in the process of countless failures. This is also destined to be another characteristic of printmaker, who pays special attention to the steps, so a printmaking artist may generally be more rational, and they must be satisfied with each step in order to deduce the final desired result.

An old photograph of Kang Jianfei when he was a student at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in 1993.The Group Photo of Kang’s Classmates.Sketching in Lin County, Henan, 1994.

CAFA ART INFO: As a pioneer in artistic exploration, how do you think about the experimental power in academies? What growth logic might it follow?

Kang Jianfei: The most important thing for an academy to be in the leading position in the field is its faculty, and the experimental part is most significant because it points to the future. For the media, the cycle of moving forward with the continuous growth of the era, generating new problems and trying to find solutions may be its growth logic. Speaking of differences, I think it is not the difference inside and outside the academy, but the difference between individual artists, since each artist is trying to find his own logic of development.

CAFA ART INFO: You just mentioned that “the key is what the purpose of making art is”, so how do you deal with it at this stage?

Kang Jianfei: I think art is a spiritual support for me, and I spend more than half of my day actually living my life, rather than “making” art. I think I have the identity of an artist, so my daily life is also named art by myself. Therefore, I think that the essence of art is a yardstick for dividing meaning.

Exhibition View of “Timberverse: Kang Jianfei Solo Exhibition” at One Art Museum in 2025.

Text (CN) by Mengxi, edited (EN) by Sue/CAFA ART INFO

Image Courtesy of the Artist.