Ink art is the highest representative of Chinese art, since the Tang and Song dynasties, while numbers of people were making painstaking effort creating it, exhausting a lifetime of effort to inherit the cultural context. However, Chinese Contemporary Ink is sandwiched between traditional ink and contemporary art. Most people still retain the aesthetic habits inherited from tradition in the period of the Republic of China, it becomes difficult for them to accept a change in Chinese ink painting, in addition, few media and critiques promote or praise contemporary ink to the public, the use of too many oracular vocabularies of contemporary ink by the contemporary ink artists, makes it difficult for them to appreciate and understand it.

To continue to flourish using contemporary ink, we have to understand and recognize the traditional aesthetic habit, and find the power to express oneself, while maintaining the meanings of text, fully grasping the techniques of pen and ink, and broaden the painting category. Boldly learning the innovated spirit to make a breakthrough, abandoning the old mode of thinking, denying the old methods and techniques, using light ink and a disorder of colors. This seems arbitrary, but actually in quality, sketches using traditional painting content again, in the picture, the main clue is still landscape, flower and bird, figure, which is no longer the traditional aesthetic habit, instead, something close to cubism, expressionism, or a visual concept of new painting. This is like Chinese people that dress fashionably, while also being well preserved within the Chinese culture of moderation, kind-hearted else, respectfulness, thrifty and humility, so to reconstruct the world of ink.

Seriously exploring the spirit of contemporary ink, the participating artists have gone to a lot of effort. As deviant artists, with their foresight, they explore a new way, transforming the impossible to the possible, changing the impractical to the practical, rather than caring about the standard of the institution, they have a dedication to study their preferences by self determination, knowing and rebuilding the aesthetic of ink again, and exploring the intersection of the West and Oriental, in pursuit of a self-viewing angle and the liberation of the spiritual world, instead of imitation and repetition of the predecessors’ techniques, opening a new era of ink with the use of new idea and vision, the future newcomers march forward following their ways until succeed.

About the exhibition

Title: New Poetry - Contemporary Chinese Ink Painting Exhibition

Dates: July 27(Sat.) – September 8(Sun.), 2013

Curator: Zhou Tong

Artists: Chang Jin, Gao Qian, Hang Chunhui, Huang Dan, Liang Ying, Liu Dan, Lin Baoling, Pan Wenxun, Sang Huoyao, Shan Fan, Shen Qin, Wen Fengxuan, Xu Hualing, Xu Lei, Xu Jiacun, Cheung Kin , Xue Zhou, Zhang Yanzi

Opening Reception: 16:00 pm, July 27(Sat.), 2013

Venue: Soka Art Center, Taipei (2F-1 No.57 Dunhua South Road, Taipei)

Media Contact: Aileen Wu 02-25700390 pr@soka-art.com.tw

Translated by Chen Peihua and edited by Sue/CAFA ART INFO.