MA DESHENG

Ma Desheng’s sensibility to fragility, poetry and harmony and his passion of painting, drawing and sculpting the eurythmy of stones guide the artist into a new Spatio-temporal scale: abstraction.

Each painting goes back and forth between black and white, which invites us to contemplate an indescribable dreamscape. Are these lunar landscapes? Are these galaxies? By penetrating in these infinite readings, the artist reminds us of the oriental vision of the origin of life on Earth: stones come from the stars and lives come from the collision of meteorites.

Although Ma Desheng has said ‘every artist is an aster’, he highlights the symbolism of stones. They are the mineral elements making links between the earth and the cosmos. Ma Desheng invites us to immerse into the deep side of the stone, surrounded by the stone material.

It’s not a coincidence that Ma Desheng turns towards abstraction. The abstraction comes from several challenges of the artist: continue his quest to cross the fluctuations of time and life, efface the human and mineral forms in favour of poetic energy and dare to expose himself.

The global epidemic and the lockdown in France offer Ma Desheng a different dimension to think of the world. He has decided to release his gesture freely and reconnect with the energy of the monochrome palette that he loved. After expressing himself through the famous vital calligraphy and woodblock prints since the 1970s, Ma Desheng creates a dialogue with the black and white brushstrokes with acrylic today. A connection is made among the genesis of his creation, the maturity of his thoughts turned towards infinity and self-acceptance. In the words of art critic Anne-Laure Peressin, ‘If harmony always comes from the opposite, Ma Desheng is a living of Yin Yang that has already become timeless’.