WANG TIANDE

Wang Tiande is an innovative avant-garde ink artist known for his creative use of incense sticks as a form of brush. Born in Shanghai in 1960, he holds both a Master’s degree in Chinese Painting and a Ph.D. in Calligraphy from the China Academy of Art in Hangzhou. Well-versed in traditional Chinese art and culture, Wang searches for new possibilities in the realm of ink art. His most groundbreaking practice replaces brushes with incense sticks, burning into layered rice paper and ink. This unique approach reimagines traditional landscapes and calligraphy, conveying the ephemeral nature of art.

Alisan Fine Arts is excited to present a selection of the artist’s latest works, which fuse his technique of burning incense into Xuan paper with his more recent practice of attaching older traditional artworks directly onto his compositions. This practice began several years ago—while viewing Ming-dynasty paintings in a friend’s collection, Wang considered the potential to combine authentic historical paintings and calligraphy with his own burned and painted works. An avid collector of older artwork, he began layering and attaching pieces from his collection to his own creations. The resulting works occupy a hybrid state, part historical ‘ready-made’ and part contemporary painting, presented as artifacts in pristine, black shadow-box frames.

Two large scale works anchor the exhibition; Clear and Distant Amid the Dense Forest is presented in a long, horizontal scroll. The piece is formatted from left to right, beginning with an ink rubbing on the left edge of the painting. As the viewer travels across the piece, depictions of jagged mountains recede slowly into clouds and mist. In contrast, Sheshan Resting Over Water is a tall, vertical work—not unlike the paintings of the Song Dynasty. The piece leads the eye upstream, following the mountains to a faded blue sky.

Wang’s work is ultimately rooted in addition and subtraction, blending the old and the new to create a sense of balance. He continues to experiment with historical Chinese painting, piloting a novel approach to this long-standing tradition.