Liao, Shanghai, China, 2009 by Shen Wei

This morning we received an exciting update from Fall 2006 Hot Shot and 20x200 edition-maker Shen Wei—he has been awarded the Rockefeller Foundation's Bellagio Center for the Creative Arts Residency in Lake Como, Italy for the month of October 2009:

Bellagio creative arts residencies - for composers, novelists, playwrights, poets, video/filmmakers and visual artists - provide time for disciplined work, individual reflection, and collegial engagement, uninterrupted by the usual professional and personal demands.

Shen writes that he will use his time in Italy to begin working on new projects.

In the past year, Shen has been busy, busy, busy, traveling to China for his beautiful new project Chinese Sentiment, having his first solo show in the US—Almost Naked at the Randall Scott Gallery—and putting together the series in a beautiful limited-edition book. In addition to being recently published in LIFE Magazine China, Shen's work is part of a traveling exhibition which just opened in Italy as part of the SIFest2009 photography festival.

To top it all off, Shen ends his email with a modest, "that's it for now."

Both of Shen's 20x200 editions, Yi, Beijing and Blessing over the Rice Machine, Guiyang, Guizhou Province, are still available and would make a fabulous addition to any collection.