WU YIMING

Since the early 1990s, WU Yiming has been ceaselessly focusing on ink painting. Now it comes to light that the artist’s early painting occurred against the background of an era which witnessed the collision of Chinese modern ink painting and Western painting. Ink painting, as a means of artistic expression, was on one hand facing the dilemma of surmounting the bond of tradition, and on the other in need of a resolution by criticism of and learning from realism, abstract art, and expressionism in western art history. WU Yiming and the artists of his generation shouldered from the very beginning the mission to reconcile the conflict between Chinese and Western painting. Moreover, he drifted between the traditional spirit and modernism, which constituted precisely the unique style and quality of his artwork. The characters in the early stage of his work appear very impressive: the figures all lack facial expressions; they seem distorted or stretched, often hovering or dashing. WU’s unrivalled language of expression was formed during this period. Through ink, watercolours, and acrylic applied in a multiplicity of layers, the paintings were rendered with ambiguity and intimacy. The images characterised by obscurity and alienation show the artist’s view towards the furore of contemporary Chinese society and his refinement and interpretation of people’s psychological distance. Furthermore, WU created the images of buddha, the statue of liberty, and Beuys all destitute of facial expressions and presented them in the language of sculpture. Even after materialisation of the ‘blankness’, viewers can still easily identify these ‘faceless classics’. In this way, WU investigated the construction of cultural symbols as well as the spread of cultural authority, giving a hint to the concepts which probably bore the semblance of the purposes and possibilities of art.