Inking a new future

Traditional ink-and-wash paintings are being rethought by bold contemporary artists who are combining ancient techniques with new ideas. Lin Qi reports.

In recent years, three terms have become popular buzzwords in the art community - new shuimo (ink-and-wash painting), experimental shuimo and contemporary shuimo.

Never has the art community and market invested so much energy in adapting traditional ink art to modern life.

Liu Kuo-sung's The Red Sun Rising From Five-Flower Pond (left) and Zhu Wei's Ink and Wash Research Lectures series (right) are on display at the Beijing exhibition Rendering the Future. Photos Provided to China Daily

Behind this swell of interest in contemporary ink painting are art investors, who want to see the commercial value of the work increase. But gallery owners and curators worry that the value of contemporary ink-and-wash painting may soon crash after being artificially inflated due to excessive market hype. They urge for more attention to be paid to serious artists who devote years to perfecting their work.

"People are sometimes hasty to establish a concept and categorize certain works. It ends up with too much time wasted on empty talk. People do not dedicate enough time and patience to seeking out solid work or seeing how artists are exploring the territories of ink art," says Yin Shuangxi, a professor with the Beijing-based Central Academy of Fine Arts.

Yin has curated the current exhibition Rendering the Future which displays representative ink works of 18 Chinese artists, such as Gu Wenda, Xu Bing and Zhu Wei.

In the early 20th century, Chinese artists, especially those who studied overseas, started to modernize classical Chinese painting by incorporating Western art techniques. But they largely stuck to traditional teachings.

It has only been in recent decades that artists, influenced by Western contemporary art, have made innovative breakthroughs in the art form. Rendering the Future reflects the diversity of styles and forms with which artists seek to revive the philosophies that ink art embodies. They decline to live like a traditional ink painter who drew inspiration from seclusion. Instead they import more social critiques in their work.

Huang Chih-yang, 49, a Taipei-born artist now living and working in Beijing, constructs a modern, digital landscape in Three Masks Movement, a painting of ink and mineral color on silk. He was inspired by the Chinese painting manual Jieziyuan Huapu to create fish-like marks that move in different directions. He distributed them all over the painting just like rows of decimal digits.

Huang, however, dislikes to be known as an ink artist, because he also works with many other mediums.

"Shuimo is used as a tag. People just feel it necessary to be categorized and tagged, which I think is meaningless," he says.

Yin says ink art traditions are deeply rooted in individuals, whether they embrace it or reject it. "Artists do not need to replicate (ink art traditions) to save them. To create and to push boundaries are how the tradition can live on."

And to achieve that goal takes years of hard work for an artist to find his own way. If not, the new shuimo can become "superficial, fads and fashions", according to Britta Erickson, artistic director of the Beijing-based Ink Studio that focuses on promoting ink painting.

Erickson curates This Is Still Landscape Painting, an exhibition currently at the Ink Studio that shows "disturbing but beautiful" ink works by Yang Jiecang, 58, an artist from Guangdong province who now divides his time between France and Germany.

Yang continues to explore classical themes of court ladies, flowers and birds. But underneath the seemingly beautiful landscapes there are metaphors for fear and death.

Yang was trained as an ink artist at the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts but spent time with a Taoist master shortly after his graduation. He later returned to art, but continues to discipline his mind like a Taoist.

"Because of this, he is able to move forward. He can take, for example, gongbi (meticulous brushwork) painting, and translate it into a rougher form - that might be called "zhuo (rough in Chinese)" - that is suited to his position and message," Erickson says.

She adds that Yang's early training in ink painting has also helped shape his mind and made him a successful artist working with many other media, including installation, video, oil painting, performance and sculpture.

But Yang regularly revisits brush and ink, she says, because it is so adaptable to his expressive needs. "He has found space for a new ink vocabulary, through discipline and an open mind."

"There is not an easy way to develop a new kind of ink painting. The easy ways are not profound and will not last long," Erickson says. She compares the process to playing a piece on the piano or violin, of which a new direction can only be found after much practice.

"And that new direction can be sublime and wonderful and influential," Erickson adds.

Contact the writer at linqi@chinadaily.com.cn