Gallery 456 / Chinese American Arts Council is pleased to announce Almost Naked, an exhibition of color portraits by Chinese photographer Shen Wei. The exhibition will open on Friday, April 29th, with a reception for the artist from 6:00 to 8:00 pm, and close on Monday, May 30th.

Shen Wei’s Almost Naked features portraits of people in America, was photographed during 2003 to 2008. The artist traveled intensively throughout the United States, looking for people who were willing to pose in front his camera, mostly nude in a private setting. As the artist states:” Almost Naked is an exploration of identity and sexuality in American. It is inspired by my upbringing in conservative China, and motivated by my passion to understand the complexity of emotion, desire, introspection and instinct.”

This will be the third solo exhibition of Almost Naked. Previously, Almost Naked had been shown in Randall Scott Gallery in 2008 in New York City and Kunst.Licht Gallery in Shanghai, China in 2008. Shen Wei’s first monograph Chinese Sentiment (Charles Lane Press, New York) will be released in May 2011.

Born and raised in Shanghai, Shen Wei currently lives and works in New York City. He received an MFA in photography, video, and related media from the School of Visual Arts in New York and a BFA in photography from Minneapolis College of Art and Design. His work have been exhibited and published nationally and internationally, and is included in the permanent collections of the Museum of Contemporary Photography, the Museum of Fine Arts St. Petersburg, the Florida Museum of Photographic Arts, the Harn Museum of Art, the Museum of Chinese in America, the Griffin Museum of Photography, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and the Kinsey Institute. He is a recipient of fellowships from the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center, UAI/New York City, LMCC and Light Work. He was named one of the top fifteen emerging photographers in the world by American Photo Magazine in 2007, and was also part of PDN’s annual PDN30 list in 2008.