Poet, engraver, calligrapher, painter and performer, Ma Desheng embodies for a model of combativeness and creativity. Ma dedicates his life to art by forming the group named 'Stars', the first avant-garde artistic movement in China in which he was with Wang Keping, Ai Wei Wei, and Huang Rui, three of the major pillars of this intelligentsia. Ma's work has been presented in solo and group exhibitions, international fairs and collected by the world's museums such as Centre Pompidou and the British Museum.
Read MoreFor over 40 years, Ma has painted, produced drawings and sculptures of his studies of the mineral forms. For the artist, stones are endowed with a soul, a vital and spiritual, immanent or transcendent element to life that animates every human live. This physical and sensitive relationship between the stone and human-being, carries a hope of eternal life: Harmony. From this, we can sense the Taoist philosophy on which all the basis of Ma Desheng's thought and inspirational influence is based. In Taoism, humans are not at the center of the universe but one element among others. The human has no right to prevail over nature and it is taught that he must respect and live in harmony with nature. Therefore, Ma Desheng's expression is guided by the 'vital breath'—the famous qi.
Text courtesy A2Z Art Gallery.
Related Press Stars Art Group, China's artistic freedom fighters, celebrate 40th anniversary 29 March 2019, The Art Newspaper On the eve of Art Basel in Hong Kong's private view on Wednesday, the Beijing-based artist Huang Rui took to the streets of Central for a paint-splashed performance about the cyclical nature of history. The piece was a tribute to Lee Wen, the pioneering Asian performance artist who died early this month.
