-- IN INK ——

1977 Born in Hunan province
2002 Graduated from Traditional Chinese Painting Department of Sichuan Academy of Fine Arts with a bachelor’s degree
Currently works and lives in Xiamen and Beijing

SOLO EXHIBITION
2015
Redefining the Tradition –Chen Jun Solo Exhibition, Mingtai Space, Beijing
2014
City in Yesterday, 798 TimesSpace Haixi Division, Xiamen

In his “Urban Landscape” series, Chen Jun reconstructed the classic schema of traditional Chinese landscape painting by replacing the lines and the concept of “cun”or “texture wrinkles” in traditional Chinese painting with brightly-coloredspots mixed with brand logos. Having covered the natural landscape that has existed maybe for centuries, these colorful dots, along with the logos of BMW, Coca Cola, etc.

Representative of the current commodity society, reveal a contemporary landscape just as the spectacular night view of a bustling metropolis, which may be where Chen’s inspiration for this series lies.

And it is probable that his acute sense of the contemporary consumption culture can be attributed to his working experience as a commercial designer before he became a professional artist.

It is evident that, through the juxtaposition of modern creation and its archetype of ancient classics, the rigid brushwork and magnificent atmosphere of Northern-Song landscape painting(as shown in the renowned Northern Song painter Li Tang’s “Whispering Pines in the Mountains” which is the archetype for Chen’s “Classics·Contemporary No. 9”), as well as the literati characters such as serenity and tranquility in Yuan-dynasty painting (as conveyed in the artworks by the famous Yuan-dynasty literatipainter Ni Zan, which were adopted as

Hang Chunhui’s cross-media educational background (from sculpture to design, and then to ink art) has not only helped him to broaden his thinking and horizon of artistic creation, but also rendered support for his various artistic experiments in terms of both techniques and vocabulary.

As an artist known for his spirit of questioning and exploring, Hang has lately been focusing on two issues, one of which is the relationship between imagery and materiality of painting, while the other discussing the construction of visual logic and its effect on the viewing experience.

In Hang’s series “Manual for Identifying Butterflies”, his paintings, which were made into horizontal or vertical scrolls, were later mounted in fames to be displayed as image. What serve as an integral part of the entire image are the butterfly specimen, together with the inscribed explanatory texts adopted from the encyclopedia about each variety of butterflies.

Hao Shiming

1977 Born in Heze,Shangdong Province, China
2000 Graduated from the Department of Traditional Chinese Painting, Tianjin Academy of Fine Arts with a bachelor's degree
2014 Graduated from the Capital Normal University with a master’s degree
Now lives and works in Beijing and Wuhan
In his series of “Landscape” with the piece “Distant Mountains” as the representative, Hao also reconstructed the landscape based on reference to classic landscape paintings with the “double-line” technique, namely, outlining the subject with double ink lines first and then filling in colors, a technique widely-used in fine-brushwork birds & flowers painting as well as copying calligraphy.

This orientation of abstraction as well as Hao’s perception of ancient Chinese time and space is unveiled in his series themed on Chinese calligraphy. In his eyes, the trajectory of the brush in space before it rests on paper, rather than the final strokes it creates on paper, is worthy of study. Thanks to his “double-line” technique, a more three-dimensional structure composed of strips has replaced the original strokes consisting of simple lines, giving a clearer picture of relations such as preceding & following, or intertwining, among strokes.

Ma Lingli

1989 Born in Chengdu, Sichuan Province.
2012 BFA in Chinese Painting Department, SichuanFine Arts Institute
This is the case in her work “Spy No.1” displayed at this exhibition. Composed of a foreground with two curio stones on the desk, as a reflection on the refined literati hobby of appreciating antiques and curios, and a background showing a vague view of part of an erotic painting along with projected shadows of the two stones, revealing the secret innermost desires of human beings, the artwork unveils the complicated yet subtle relationship between image and semantics, presenting the outward show and the inward essence of human desire in a typically-oriental implicit way.

Exploration of the relationships between light and shadow, virtuality and reality, time and space has always been part of Ma Lingli’s artistic creation.

In her earlier artworks, Ma created projected shadows on a wall by lighting up a painting on silk with flashlights. The shadows, though different from the image on the painting due to the varied light permeability of pigments, still bear relevance to what is behind the surface.

Peng Jian

1982 Born in Yueyang, Hunan Province
2013 MFA, Graduated from China Academy of Art, Hangzhou

The brightly-colored paintings featuring pop art by Peng Jian are also based on the artist’s unique understanding of and reference to traditional Chinese culture. In his piece “Empty Room”, the most representative one of his earlier series, the books on the desk, and the Four Treasures of the Study along with relevant curios displayed in the room imply the connection of this piece with traditional culture, although both the buildings outside the window and the decoration of the room indicate that this is a study in modern times. The semi-transparent screen window that separates the tranquil study which symbolize the artist’s longing for classic ancient life from the noisy urban streets seems to be of metaphor.

This orientation of abstraction as well as Hao’s perception of ancient Chinese time and space is unveiled in his series themed on Chinese calligraphy. In his eyes, the trajectory of the brush in space before it rests on paper, rather than the final strokes it creates on paper, is worthy of study. Thanks to his “double-line” technique, a more three-dimensional structure composed of strips has replaced the original strokes consisting of simple lines, giving a clearer picture of relations such as preceding & following, or intertwining, among strokes.

Although calligraphy is no longer a way of daily writing in the present day, just as the status of landscape painting without the context of ancient life in Chen Jun’s artworks.

Hao has revived the contemporary relevance of calligraphy as an art form and vocabulary by imagery processing of Chinese characters and reproducing the process of writing.

In her series of “Painting of silk”,the delicate lace and the embroidery needle are all implying the presence of a female subject though there are no concrete figures in the image. The piece“Painting of silk 8”, the purest one of this series, is an apposite example of creating a strong presence of a female by illustrating nothing but lace-like patterns in the image.

Xu Hualing has gone to the other extreme of the exploration of “lines”—making a breakthrough of ink art by getting rid of outlines. With adolescent girls and young women as her favorite subjects.