August 04, 2018 - August 24, 2018
Paintings by Kang L. Chung and His Followers
Exhibition Artwork
Opening Reception
Introduction
Written by Kang L. Chung
The artists participating in the exhibition of “Exceptional Insight” are a rather interesting group. They are examples worthy of further attention for their teaching, learning, exchange, and mutual encouragement. There are thirteen artists exhibited here. Aside from myself, the twelve other artists are friends who have followed my artistic ideas over the last few years. Each of them paints in a different medium and with a different style, but they have all explored developmental directions marked by personal traits on their artistic journeys.
In oil painting, Liao Xuejun in his Visiting to the Garden and Waking from a Dream series, utilize loose and wandering brushwork to captures hazy images, imbuing traditional garden culture with a shifting, misty poetry flavor. Xiao Xu uses varied Super-realistic style in figure paintings that stem from reality but incorporate fictional stories, mocking and allegorizing various real-life phenomena. Dang Jixing draws on traditional Chinese aesthetics, blended with structural elements from Western painting, to present the images in his mind; through these flowers and plants, he works to pursue a classical poetic realm. Wang Yuesheng has always been fascinated by freshly-harvested fields; this love of the land and this attachment to the fields achieve a broader perspective through his exquisite and clear brushwork. For nearly ten years, I have focused on my Lingnan Fields and Farmland series, attempting to pursue, through fresh greens and bright colors, an ideal green space that has never been polluted by man.
In the Chinese painting section, Yang Xing blends the techniques, symbols, and distinctive lines of Chinese and Western painting; from the composition of the textures to the arrangement of flat colors, he transcends the fixed patterns of traditional Chinese painting with a new perspective. Mo Yuyu blends new meticulous (gongbi) painting with watercolor techniques, utilizing the effects of water flows and splatters and the decorative joy of resplendent, delightful colors and patterns to give traditional meticulous painting a new meaning. Lin Miao’s Chinese landscape paintings are rooted in the literati tradition and have evolved in an intensely modern direction; she uses natural and childish like images and symbols to construct her spiritual landscapes. Zhong Jianjun’s ink paintings blend the forms of mountain ranges and shadowy clouds with the Blue Dragon, the monkey, and the toad. In the diluted and elegant ink, the artist creates a legendary, secretive atmosphere.
In watercolors, Yang Deling’s sketchy, freehand painting method is deeply textural, fully presenting the transparent and bright airiness of watercolors that dissolves the objects before our eyes into something real yet illusory. The mountain scenery in Yu Yuanquan’s paintings resounds with a natural charm and a carefree and otherworldly feeling that is just like flying through the clouds over a mountain range. Luo Chunping’s work does not have a specific source; she obviously draw away the visual images from real life, capturing the fortuitous effects of the intermingling of water and color with a casual freedom but leaving the viewer with space for imagination. Finally, we have to discuss He Xiaochun’s art; she is the artist in the group with the most conceptual tendencies. In the two-dimensional works presented in this exhibition, she uses mixed media, including incense ash, to convey a homesick sentimentality that floats in the paintings like a dream. Incense ash is a material she has always used to commemorate reverence and grief for departed ancestors.
Hope this exhibition will provide viewers with the opportunity to appreciate these works and respond to the information conveyed by the artists.
