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Asia Week NY

Chinese Contemporary Art, featuring etchings by Wang Huaiqing | March 13 – April 26th

By Asia Week NY, Wang Huaiqing
Chinese Contemporary Art, featuring etchings by Wang Huaiqing

March 13 – April 26
For Immediate Release

Wang Huaiqing, (born Beijing, 1944), arguably the finest living painter in China today, recently completed several series of etchings based on his larger scale oils.  The exhibition showcases his newest etchings, printed in Barcelona under his supervision.  Wang silhouettes everyday objects and animates them in space.  The bold figurative elements are shorthand versions of Chinese classical furniture, archaic bronzes and porcelain vases.  Flat black shapes are placed against the void, much like Matisse cutouts; but there is no mistaking their Chinese origins. Wang’s genius is in his playful animation of two dimensions and the allegorical inference of Chinese traditional objects.

In 1956, Wang passed the entry examination to study at the Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA) High School in Beijing but his schooling was interrupted by the Cultural Revolution.  He and his CAFA classmates were sent to the countryside to work for subsistence farmers in northwest China. Wang does not dwell on this period with regret.  In his indomitable optimism, Wang commented, ”We were young and eager to experience life. In spite of the difficult living conditions, I gained a deep appreciation for Nature and the traditions of Chinese agrarian society.  I feel lucky to have had such an immersion during the formative stages of my artistic development.” During this period, Wang designed numerous political posters, many of which were included in an exhibition at the Asia Society in New York in 2008.  The Soviet-realist-based style in these earlier works foretells the graphic genius in Wang’s mature work.

Finally admitted to the graduate program at CAFA in 1979, Wang painted with oil on canvas in a realistic Western style full of allegorical meaning.  As part of an emerging group of talented artists, “The Contemporaries,” Wang sought beauty and art in the everyday.  In the mid-1980’s Wang branched out stylistically and garnered numerous national painting awards.

Around that time, Wang was profoundly influenced by a sketching trip to eastern China, in the region around Shaoxing where the traditional architecture is dominated by white washed stucco walls and black tile roofs.  Wang was struck by the juxtaposition of the simple black and white buildings, and the intrinsic “Chinese-ness” of the shapes. His painting palette became heavily dependent on black, white and grey in the 1980’s, echoing the interplay between form and negative space in Chinese calligraphy.

The bold, black forms in this current exhibition may remind a Western viewer of Matisse’ “Jazz Suite.”  In the two “Families” series on view, Wang arranged soot-black shapes against the bare paper, based on silhouettes of archaic bronze tripods, vases and bowls to create bold, near-abstract compositions.  The connecting drips of the printing ink recall Chinese calligraphy cursive script. Wang introduced bold color in his work from time to time, such as the cinnabar red of the background of “Peace.” Wang was not only influenced by Chan Buddhist ideas of space and void, but after travelling to the United States, he was deeply impressed by Minimalist artists such as Giorgio Morandi and Sol Lewitt.  This exhibition reveals the full expressive powers of this Chinese master.

M. Sutherland Fine Arts is pleased to present these prints, along with selected works by other artists represented by the gallery for AsiaWeek March 2019.    The exhibition will continue after AsiaWeek (ends March 23) by appointment only until April 26.

Chinese Contemporary Art, featuring etchings by Wang Huaiqing

March 13 – April 26, by appointment

Asia Week Opening Reception Thursday, March 14, 6–8 pm

Asia Week Hours
March 13–23rd,  11am – 5pm daily

 

EXHIBITION PAGE

 

[image] Wang Huaiqing, “Peace”, Etching on rag paper, 2012, 45 x 22.75 inches

NYT and Huang I-Ming show for Asia Week preview

By Asia Week NY, Huang I-Ming, Press

Will Heinrich mentions our Huang I-Ming exhibition in NYT’s Asia Week preview… Asia Week’s Rare and Unusual Objects for Art Lovers and Collectors

A show of abstract ink drawings by the contemporary Taiwanese calligrapher Huang I-Ming at M. Sutherland Fine Arts vividly demonstrates at large scale the unlimited textural and tonal possibilities of black ink on white paper. 7 East 74th Street, 3 fl.; 212-249-0428; msutherland.com.

HUANG I-MING: New Ink will open for Asia Week NY, March 15 through May 5th

By Announcement, Asia Week NY, Huang I-Ming, openings, Press

HUANG I-MING : NEW INK, March 15 – May 5, 2018

For Immediate Release

Huang I-ming (b.1952, I-lan, Taiwan) is an accomplished Chinese calligrapher based in Taiwan who also has taught and exhibited extensively in the PRC. Huang has practiced calligraphy his entire life, ever since he could hold a brush as a small child. Much like in the Ming and Qing Dynasties when scholar artists were first court officials and then retired to lives of creative contemplation, Huang, after a short political career, turned to practicing and teaching calligraphy full-time. Few modern calligraphers have full mastery of all script forms, but Huang is an outstanding exception. Huang’s oeuvre includes all calligraphic scripts, from Ancient Seal Script to Han Clerical Script, Regular, Running and Cursive scripts. Teaching at the Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA) in Beijing, Huang absorbed the creative excitement and vigor of the art scene there. He came away with renewed enthusiasm for a “modern” calligraphic style.

For many years, calligraphy art has been my life. I have used every ounce of my being to create these lines. All the changes in these lines are produced with feelings and emotions. My frame of mind has evidently affected their creation, and they have, in return, brought me into a new realization and awareness of what is happening to the different environments, matters, and things surrounding me. This is a process of incessant cause and effect evolution………These lines have already become my entirety.

Huang further explains that a piece of Chinese calligraphy has two levels of meaning: wen yi and shu yi. The classical styles of Chinese calligraphy, according to traditional canons, have both wen yi, the literal meaning of the image in Chinese, and shu yi, the expressive content of the brushwork that expresses the feelings of the calligrapher. Some art theorists regard wen yi as the “narrative” aesthetic in contrast with shu yi, the “lyric” aesthetic of calligraphy. Just as musicians interpret a musical score, so calligraphers celebrate the execution of the characters. Huang defines this dualism in modern calligraphy as “classical linearity.”

What happens when wen yi becomes irrelevant to the creative act? The link between an actual symbol or word and brushwork is divorced and shu yi, “lyric aesthetic” becomes paramount. Huang credits the Japanese post –WWII calligrapher, Teshima Yukei of the Shosho group or “Shao Zi Pai” (or “Few Character Group), with promoting the first theoretical basis for separating wen yi from shu yi. To convey the utter despair and ruin of Japan in the late 1940’s and 1950s, Teshima believed that he could only do so by deconstructing and re-forming the written symbols of calligraphy. The resulting works allowed people who cannot read Chinese/Japanese kanji to grasp the intended wen yi or meaning of his visual perception. Inspired by this theoretical basis, Huang forged a new creative path, one where shu yi (expressive/lyrical nature of the brush) is transcendent, without specific reference to written language. Huang describes his new work as “abstract expressionism with classical linearity” and is quick to remind that his works are not paintings per se, as the brushwork is firmly rooted in the framework of calligraphy brush traditions separate from classical ink painting. Further, Huang also gives credit to the influence of Western art on his style, specifically from the Abstract Expressionist painters of the second half of the 20th Century.

The current exhibition will feature Huang’s breadth of style, from unwavering perfection of his small running script in “Autumn Stillness,’ to the mesmerizing abstraction, ”The Changes of Mother Earth.” The show will open for Asia Week (March 15- 24, 2018) and then continue through May 5 by appointment. This is the third exhibition of Huang’s works at M. Sutherland Fine Arts.

 

HUANG I-MING : NEW INK – March 15 – May 5, by appointment

Asia Week Opening Reception Friday, March 16th, 6-8pm

Asia Week Hours
March 15–24th, 11am – 5pm daily

M. Sutherland Fine Arts
7 E 74th Street, Third Floor, New York, NY
Tel. 212-249-0428 | Cel. 301-529-2531

 

[At Top] – Huang I-Ming, Resplendence, 2014, ink on paper 106 x 92cm

 

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‘Guo Hua’ is Go!

By Announcement, Asia Week NY, hsu kuohuang

Our opening weekend and reception for “Guo Hua: Defining Contemporary Chinese Painting” have been a rousing success!  If you’re out braving the historic ‘Light-Dusting 2017’ of our current winter storm, please drop by the gallery today until 5pm and through the final weekend where the gallery will be open from 11am –5pm for viewing.

We’d like to thank both The China Press and Artfix daily for their support for the show and mentions specifically on the new Hsu Kuohuang paintings.

Guo Hua – Defining Contemporary Chinese Painting, March 9 – April 29

By Announcement, Asia Week NY, Press

Guo Hua: Defining Contemporary Painting

For Immediate release

M. Sutherland Fine Arts proudly celebrates Asia Week New York 2017 by presenting the work of eleven Chinese artists in an exhibition “Guo Hua: Defining Contemporary Painting” at its new gallery space at 7 East 74th Street (Third Floor).

What makes a work guo hua? The literal meaning is “national painting”. That is, art painted in China and based on traditional Chinese themes of painting. But could the term be used to describe ink painting made by any ethnic Chinese artist working in other parts of Asia or in the West? Might guo hua also include oil painting, collage or another Western medium wielded by a modern Chinese artist whose philosophical viewpoint expresses traditional theories of Chinese painting? Our Asia Week NY 2017 exhibition illustrates the expansive definition of guo hua with the art of eleven artists: Fung Mingchip, Hai Tao, Hsia Ifu, Hsu Kuohuang, Hu Xiangdong, Hung Hsien, Jia Youfu, Liang Quan, Yang Mian, Zhu Daoping and Zhu Jinshi.

In his landscape “Seeking the Way in a Spring Mountain,” 2016 (ink and color wash on paper), Taiwan-based artist Hsu Kuohuang boldly uses splashed ink and color to create an ambiguously “contemporary” rendering of cliff-like peaks flattened against the painting surface in a way that recalls the closely cropped photographs of Edward Weston. The modern viewer would never mistake this for a copy of earlier Chinese work. Yet Hsu’s work remains guo hua because he uses the same mineral powders that ancient Chinese artists brushed into their “blue and green style” landscapes in the 9th century. Hsu’s creative vision is Chinese, but the artist (born 1950) grew up eastern Taiwan, a much freer and less restricted environment than the People’s Republic of China. Although produced in Taiwan, Hsu’s landscapes remain in the scholarly tradition of Chinese classical landscape and, arguably, express more of the traits of guo hua than any other paintings in the show.

Hai Tao, a Nanjing-based painter (born 1959), paints surreal, fantastic images using layers of wash brushed in multiple layers to create abstract, sweeping veils of ink on paper. While Hai uses the traditional brush and ink and mo-gu (no bones) brushwork style that can be traced back to the Southern Song masters, the landscape forms bear a tenuous connection to reality. As inspiration, Hai listens to Western classical music, causing him to fall into a meditative state when painting. Certainly no Southern Song or Qing eccentric painter like Gong Xian, (another source of inspiration to Hai) would have been listening to Mozart in their studio! Hai Tao’s paintings are the result of this mix of unusual inspirations, but still are unquestionably guo hua.

The inclusion of the pastel-toned landscape oil, “Estranged No. 3” by Hu Xiangdong, a Beijing-based painter (born 1961), certainly stretches the definition of guo hua. Hu described the scene parenthetically as a view from Diao Yutai, a former imperial garden in western Beijing (now a state-run guest compound reserved for high-level foreign dignitaries). Although painted in oil on canvas in a pop-like realism as though seen through a torn cellophane wrapping, the view is of a recognizable scenic area, much like the tradition of Ming literati painters brushing well-known scenic views around West Lake. While the media is not ink and color wash on paper but oil on canvas; however, the painter is Chinese, the subject matter is a famous Chinese landscape spot and the work was done in Beijing.

At the far end of the spectrum, looms Zhu Jinshi’s expressionist landscape “The Scenery of Cézanne” (2007), an oil on canvas slathered with a thick impasto that oozes vibrant, luscious color. Born in mainland China in the 1950s, Zhu received no formal training but was tutored clandestinely by an older oil painter during the Cultural Revolution. Zhu eventually went to Berlin where he earned fellowships for further concentrated study. He returned to China to create large abstract canvases, many of them bearing titles that reference European literature, philosophy, and art. “The Scenery of Cézanne” may be European in inspiration, but this homage to the past relates to the practice of ancient guo hua ink painters who honored famous ancient painting masterpieces or passages from Tang or Song poems.

Now celebrating its 18th year as a gallery, M. Sutherland Fine Arts is pleased to display this rare selection of contemporary Chinese paintings during Asia Week New York 2017 at its new location at 7 East 74th Street (Third Floor). Please call 212-249-0428.

 

Guo Hua: Defining Contemporary Chinese Painting

Asia Week New York 2017

Opening Reception Friday, March 10, 6-8pm

OPEN HOUSE WEEKEND MARCH 11-12
Saturday and Sunday 11am-5pm

ASIA WEEK HOURS Daily, 11am-5pm

And viewable through Saturday, April 29 by appointment