HUANG YUAN QING
b. 1963, ChinaA unique and leading figure of abstract art in China, Huang Yuanqing (*1963) integrates Eastern and Western techniques and approaches to abstract painting. Skilled as a calligrapher, Huang’s paintings take a contemporary literati position, working from the traditional concept that painting and calligraphy stem from the same source. Guided by line, profuse layers of color and textures, Huang’s intuitive language emerges slowly, appearing flexible and yet precise, guided by a rhythmic intelligence leading each resulting work. Contrary to the principles of calligraphy, however, Huang’s paintings are created over a period of time, sometimes taking months or even years, suspending his process and output, and thus allowing time to play a critical and essential role in the completion of a finished work.
‘For those who belong to our own culture, calligraphy is a ‘concept’. As soon as we hear the word, we have an instinctive understanding: characters, written beautifully. If we strip out the writing of characters from this concept, then what calligraphy gives us is a rich field of dynamic relationships between line and line, line and shape, momentum and force, rhythm and melody. These relationships are unfamiliar and fresh. Our ancestors built up depths of experience in the quality and tone of shapes and lines, and in all the possibilities open to the calligrapher. I examine calligraphy from the point of view of transcending calligraphy. The internal logic of calligraphy informs my painting, and is one of the major elements in my work. It is too narrow to see calligraphy as merely the art of writing characters.
Writing is the writer himself. It is a part of his body, his emotions, his perceptions. It is the writer’s nerve endings. The writer has nowhere to hide among his words.’
Huang Yuan Qing, Shanghai 2015
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