Orbiting the themes of time, space, and existence, Chen Ping's oil paintings combine the artist's experience of the landscape and his daily meditations with ancient Chinese and Western mythology and methodology. Using tactile yet amorphous brush strokes, Chen contemplates the relationship between humanity and nature.
Read MoreChen Ping graduated from Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts, in 1985. He later moved to Tasmania, receiving a BFA from the School of Creative Arts and Media, University of Tasmania, in 1997. Dividing his time between Beijing and Hobart ever since, Chen melds his Western and Eastern influences and surroundings in his work. His background in traditional Chinese painting is often made apparent in calligraphic motifs reminiscent of Chinese characters, as seen in paintings like Star's Garden 3 (2018).
The figures and backgrounds in Chen Ping's paintings are defined by their fluid forms, merging and fading into each other. In Three brow fire among crowd (2016), for example, clouds of grey with the occasional red highlight suggest standing figures, while a writhing body can only just be delineated in With Blue Bird or Picnic with Red Purple Bird (both 2017). Chen's use of morphing shapes embodies a personal philosophy centred on the interconnectedness of living beings.
In The Lady Bird's Garden (2019)—his solo exhibition at Hobart's Colville Gallery—Chen Ping presented paintings of floral motifs and mythological anecdotes drawn from both Chinese and Western visual traditions. Through the exhibited paintings, the artist considered the process of producing symbols and their meanings across different time periods and cultures.
The mountains of Hobart inspired the paintings shown in Muse and Mountain (2020): a solo exhibition at Nanda\Hobbs in Sydney. For this show, Chen Ping continued to draw from Chinese and Western art history and mythology, employing black, horizontal brush strokes and a vertical orientation in Ink Mountains, Winded Victoria, Girl on Tiger (2020), for example, to evoke a traditional Chinese ink scroll painting.
Garden, Informality, Henley on Thames, United Kingdom (2020); Star, Colville Gallery, Hobart (2019); Bird's Daughter, Nanda\Hobbs, Sydney (2018); Australian Artists, Art Beijing (2017); Returning Lives, Ten Days on the Island, Rosny Barn, Hobart (2017); Mapping Melbourne, Melbourne International Fine Art, Multicultural Arts Victoria (2013); Unseen Forest, Tally Beck Contemporary, New York (2012).
Personal Structures: Time·Space·Existence #4, 55th Venice Biennale (2017); Collaboration, Fujian Museum, Fuzhou (2016); Chinese Contemporary Art, China Pavilion, Expo 2015, Milan (2015); Seeking: Australian Chinese Artists, Australia-ChinaCouncil, Sydney (2014); Made in China, Australia, Salamanca Arts Centre, Hobart (2013).
Sherry Paik | Ocula | 2020
