An abstract artist since the 1960s, Fong Chung-Ray is considered to be one of the major Chinese avant-garde artists. Initially, his work focused on abstract landscapes, but he gradually moved away from this movement when he turned to Buddhist spirituality. By going beyond the formal representation of nature, Fong Chung-Ray has revived the spiritual essence that emanates from the paintings by the great old masters and invites the viewer to contemplate.Born in 1934 in China, Fong Chung-Ray was obliged to leave his family at a very young age and go into exile, due to the Chinese Civil War. The worsening political situation obliged him to leave China and he moved to Taiwan in 1949\. His passion for art and inquiring mind led him to take an interest in Western art, which he discovered through reading journals and books in the American Library in Taipei.In 1957, he founded the Four Seas Artists Association. During this period, he experimented with abstraction and used new Western techniques, such as painting with oils on canvas. In 1961, he became a member of the Wuyue Group (Fifth Moon Group) and participated in many exhibitions.In 1971, he was awarded a Rockefeller Foundation grant that enabled him to travel to Europe and the United States.When he settled in San Francisco, in 1975, he began to work with acrylic paints.
