Reflections of the soul---- Chinese Contemporary Ink Wash Painting  

Venue: Geelong Art Gallery, Victoria

Period: July 16—Sep 9, 2011

 I. Overview of the exhibition:

Ink painting is an outstanding representative of Chinese painting. Ink figure painting takes ink as the medium and figures as the expression targets. It is one of the special painting sorts with characteristics in Chinese painting. Nowadays, contemporary ink figure painting enjoys a brand new development. Many Chinese painting artists with innovation spirit try their best to make breakthroughs in the field of traditional painting schema, to draw figures in an expressive and imaginative manner as well as to reflect picture of mind and the spirit of times.

This exhibition selects ink paintings from 9 painters who are innovators in colors. They combine impressionistic style and expression methods to create paintings with vivid modern colors and strong personal styles. These paintings basically reflect the latest exploration achievements of contemporary ink figure paintings. Most of these artists have once worked in the field of realistic ink paintings. Since 1980s, the openness of China has brought them vast space for their art exploration. They gradually walked out from realistic painting field and they have successfully combined traditional eastern freeness with western-style expression to present their subjective feels in unique “ink language”. In this process, unique and personal painting styles are formed. It is believed that these contemporary ink figure paintings from China will brought aesthetic pleasure and beautiful eastern feelings to people of Australia.  

II. Artists attending this exhibition (9 artists and each one to display 5 pieces of works):

Leisure Tour in the City: Tian Liming, Zhang Peicheng, Liu Qinghe

Shuttle of Histories: Tang Yongli, Liu Jin’an

Flying in the Dream: Shao Fei, Chen Suping

Interaction between Opera and Painting: Zhu Zhengeng, Ma Shulin  

1.  Leisure Tour in the City:

Since 1990s, with the rapid development of China's urbanization, the topic “metropolis” has drawn more and more attention from artists and become a hot subject in their work. On one hand, just like other people in cities, artists enjoy the prosperity and convenience of metropolis; on the other hand, artists have to face the uproar and fickleness of metropolis. Therefore, ink figure painting with expressive colors is born.

Artists Zhang Peicheng, Tian Liming and Liu Qinghe are outstanding in this field. On the boat of ink painting, in the river of metropolis, they describe metropolitan scenes with characteristic “ink languages” and express various feelings arising from life in metropolis. Zhang Peicheng shows the leisure aspect of modern metropolis through structure strokes and the art concept of “armchair”. Therefore, his works is full of pleasure. Tian Liming combines traditional boneless painting with western impressionistic light and shadow to express characters in a clear, crystal and transparent manner. The metropolises in his paintings show a beauty of freeness and purity. Liu Qinghe is good at describe the rootless and anxiety of people in metropolis. Characters in his paintings are either in the clouds or under the water. The flowing of clouds and water reflects the floatation of metropolis and helplessness of the people in metropolis.

 2.  Shuttle between Histories

For the century, Chinese art has developed around the topics of changes from past to present and differences between China and the West. Thus, thoughts on tradition and modern enable many artists to penetrate histories and modern, which bestows traditional elements, realities and western essences upon them. Such a shuttle between histories and modern not only implies their respect to tradition and care for modern, but also means that their art innovation is built on the solid foundation of tradition.

The artist Tang Yongli's understanding and learning from traditional Chinese frescos, especially Dunhuang frescos contribute a characteristic of his work. He is good at combining tradition and modern, faith and secularity to present them in his paintings through the sense of history created by mottled texture and fine lines. Liu Jin’an uses his powerful brush to raise questions to history and reality. His works is full of philosophy and modern feelings.  

3.  Flying in the Dream:

Although art is closely related to reality and people are familiar with the saying that “art comes from reality”, art is different from reality. Normally, it transcends reality. Many artists are good at building a fantastic art world which is far away from reality. The art world maybe seems unreal, but it is attractive and poetic.

As a female artist, Shao Fei paints what she has dreamed in a fantastic manner. The Classic of Mountains and Rivers (an ancient book about China's geography) is a product of Chinese ancestors' imagination, which has reflected their wisdom. Shao Fei's paintings of “The Classic of Mountains and Rivers” are imagination products of contemporary Chinese, which reflect the excellent imagination and expressiveness of contemporary artists. Chen Suping's Backyard is a picture about a home in a young man's dream. This painting stores many dreams of his childhood and the backyard is his warm spiritual habitat.  

4. Interaction between Opera and Painting

Traditional Chinese opera and ink painting share the art of formula. Every gesture and motion, every stroke and brush has to follow strict rules. Such a feature decides the exaggeration, simplicity, compatibility and poetic beautify of Chinese opera and ink painting. Meanwhile, it greatly restricts the creativity of artists. In the history of China's contemporary history, some painters take opera and ink paintings as the point of penetration. They realize the sense of physical form and metaphysical spirit from opera and painting. Thus, they can show the formulaic beauty and liberate themselves from the restriction of formula.

Zhu Zhengeng's paintings focus on bringing feelings into the traditional formula. Feeling is the core and he taps the potential of feelings around paintings. Characters in his paintings are interesting and attractive. Ma Shulin’s bold breakthrough in traditional ink painting formulas also makes a breakthrough in the small-comedy pattern of characters in opera. He creates a self-sufficient spiritual world through bold brush and fine emotions. Through a small piece of paper, painters present various aspects of life, which reflect the real situations and conditions.