Galerie Vee is recognized for playing a pioneering role internationally in the Contemporary Chinese Glass Sculpture. Exhibitions have been held in Hong Kong, the United States and the United Kingdom, including at Sculpture and Functional Arts Expo, Chicago (www.sofaexpo.com). Artwork is collected by important international collectors of glass sculpture, Chinese contemporary fine art and international sculpture. The ground-breaking initial exhibitions in Hong Kong are documented in the book "China Rises – Chinese Contemporary Sculpture in Glass" along with pertinent essays and commentary about the movement. 'China Rises' is available from Galerie Vee, The Cat Street Gallery (Hong Kong) and Leo Kaplan Modern (New York). Galerie Vee first introduced the Hong Kong public to Chinese Glass Sculpture with the work of ZHUANG Xiaowei in early 2006, in an exhibition entitled "Explorations: Opposites Attract". The artist is the founder of The Studio Glass Movement in China, and is highly respected as having made instrumental changes in glass development in China. ZHUANG has since exhibited internationally, with the most recent upcoming Museum at the Alexander Tutsek-Stiftung in Munich, making him the first mainland Chinese artist sculpting in glass to be exhibited outside the mainland. His work is now in great demand by collectors both in Hong Kong and internationally, and has been viewed at SOFA Chicago 2006 and 2007. The artistic evolution and emergence of the Studio Glass Movement in China is rooted firmly in academic training and education and proudly embraces Chinese culture and history, whilst being expressed in a strikingly contemporary approach. Chinese cast glass sculpture, being free from the constraints and functional expectations of blown vessel-like forms, and with the trend in Chinese art more towards the idea, glass clearly emerges as a new medium for sculpture. Galerie Vee has been instrumental in raising awareness of glass itself in China as a medium of artistic expression, and in highlighting the uniquely intense character of developments in the medium of glass in the Chinese art scene. Change is occurring in China at a staggering pace unseen elsewhere in the world, and the studio glass scene is too, being spurred on at this dramatic pace. The relatively new yet enticingly sensuous medium of glass is ready to be welcomed by visionaries to the world of fine art sculpture.
