INK PAINTING by Chen Lyusheng
7 DEC 2024 - 28 FEB 2025
Ink walks together with water, integrating or resisting each other all the way. And the traces they left, depict a universe of art.
The inclusive water, combining with the steady ink, produces fantastic compatibility to link any color and all kinds of materials, making the appearances of painting more variety, and maintains an extraordinary characteristic that is obviously identified as ink-painting.
However, as such an open and distinguishable art form, ink painting seems has never stood under the spotlight of the Modern Art since the 20th century.
Even till now, when I talk about ink painting, words like “stuffy”, “antiquated” occur to my mind. And it seems not active enough in contemporary art-market as well. What makes the so called Water-and-Ink paintings being a situation today? Is it bias? mis-guide by marketing? or disadvantage of itself?
Y Gallery is set to host series of exhibitions, inviting artists and experts to talk about the questions above.
With great honor, the series exhibitions will begin with works by Mr. Chen Lyusheng, through which he will explore an experiment with the visitors about the way out of the art theories.
I hope the Y gallery would be a meet-point of the traditional art of ink painting and the cosmopolitan city of Hong Kong, and a start-point for a journey of contemporary ink painting to the outside world. It’s similar to the sign “Y” shows.
PREFACE
Y GALLERY
Unit C, 18/F, S22, No.22. Heung Yip Road, Wong Chuk Hang, Hong Kong
Tel: +852 6215 4589
Opening Hours: 11:00 - 18:00 (Tue-Fri) / 11:00 - 19:00 (Sat)
Closed: Sunday, Monday
FELLOW ARTIST’S COMMENTARY
Such Jiangnan-style pieces were attempted by Deng Ke several decades ago. That was the taste of late spring in Jiangnan - beautiful and gentle, like the happy smiles of Suzhou girls. The later Yang Mingyi gave broader interpretation and representation of Jiangnan. The presence of fog produced a sense of distance that gave rise to a kind of appreciation for "poetic barrier."
Lyusheng was born in the Jiangnan region as well. He leads people to meditate on one feature after another. He invites you to enter a corner of a window, a kitchen or a lane so that you would feel like a resident rather than a tourist. You then begin to imagine that you grew up here, went to school here and got married here. You wear very plain clothes and have a cute and obedient daughter at home. At the place where you went through a lot of sorrow, you mourn for she love shat could no longer continue and the debt of grace you could never repay. . .He carefully guides you, with the light touches of Ni Yunlin more typical than Ni himself so that you may “produce remembrances that you have never had before", as Tolstoy put it when he was defining music.
<Nostalgic Feelings for Jiangnan> By Huang Yongyu
ARTIST | CHEN LYUSHENG
Chen Lyusheng was born in 1956 in Yangzhong City, Jiangsu Province. In 1978, he was admitted to Nanjing University of Arts, studied at the Department of Fine Arts， and finally got his Master's Degree in Art History and Criticism in 1985.
He had served as the director of the Department of Classical Art of the People's Fine Arts Publishing House in Beijing; the director of Research Department at Research Institute of Traditional Chinese Painting; the director of Academic Department I at the National Art Museum of China; vice director of the National Museum of China(2011-2016); the 7th and 8th council member of China Artists Association; the 5th and 6th vice director of Beijing Artists Association; the 1st deputy director of the Association of Artistic Critics in Beijing; the 1st and 2nd council member of the Association of Artistic Critics of China.
He was head of the Art and Science Reach Center and curator of the museum of Chinese Science Technology University; Head of Chinese Institution of Han Dynasty’s Art; chief community member of Plastic Art of the Association of Artistic Critics of China; head of Chinese art in 20th Century Institution of Jilin University of Art; head of academic committee of Qi Baishi International Research Center; deputy director of the Theoretical Committed China Artists Association; the 3rd executive council member of Chinese People Association for Peace and Disarmament; specially-invited researcher of China National Academy of Painting. He also serves as guest professor at at Nanjing University of the Arts, Shanghai Academy of Fine Arts, Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts, Jilin University of Art, Hubei University, City University of Macau, National Taiwan Normal University. He initiates and owns private museums of Chen Lyusheng Art museum(Changzhou, Hainan, Yangzhong, Hefei), Oil Lamps Museum(Yangzhong, Changzhou), Museum of Han Dynasty Art (Yangzhong), Bambooware Museum(Yangzhong).