Variations in Ink — Selected works from Ink Asia

Alisan Fine Arts is pleased to present selected works from Ink Asia. On display will be works by four Chinese artists – Hao Shiming, Pan Gongkai, Wang Tiande, and Zhang Yu – experimenting with line, form, and media in ink painting. This curated selection traces, first, the artistic lineage of Chinese ink painting and the variations in contemporary practices, and second, presents artists who reimagine line as a mere brush stroke or as a form created by serendipity.

Born in 1977 in Heze, Shandong, Hao Shiming is a Beijing-based artist who attempts to extract the most ‘pure’ elements from traditional ink painting – such as lines – and transform and reconstruct them. Line is perhaps the most central aspect of his artistic philosophy. His lines are neither flat nor rendered in perspective; rather, they interweave and undulate upon themselves, like writhing serpents. While his landscape works position the viewer to recognize them as such, it is his calligraphic works, featuring Tang dynasty poems, that explore the incredible possibilities of understanding line as suggestive of form, or form as suggestive of line. Along with light colors, his works express a powerful leaping rhythm, as if the spirit of ink itself flows.

Pan Gongkai, born in 1947 in Ninghai, Zhejiang, is the son of the acclaimed modernist Chinese artist and respected art educator Pan Tianshou. However, the artistic visions of father and son could not be more different. Pan Gongkai’s artistic oeuvre stretches beyond painting, often incorporating three-dimensional elements such as lighting. He is one of the most ardent experimenters in ink art and is deeply engaged with the concept of xieyi, which emphasizes spontaneity and the spirit of being through brushstrokes. His works have been collected by major institutions such as the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, The Frye Art Museum in Seattle, The San Diego Museum of Art, Tokyo University of the Arts, Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall in Taipei, the National Art Museum of China in Beijing, the Shanghai Art Museum, the Guangdong Museum of Art, the Zhejiang Art Museum, and the Macau Museum of Art.

Wang Tiande is an innovative avant-garde ink artist known for his creative use of incense sticks as a painting tool. Born in Shanghai in 1960, he studied at the College of Art in Shanghai in 1981 before furthering his studies at the China Academy of Art in Hangzhou. After graduating in 1988 with a degree in traditional Chinese painting, he went on to obtain a PhD in calligraphy in 2014 from the same academy. Deeply knowledgeable in traditional Chinese art and culture, Wang searches for new possibilities within ink art. His most groundbreaking innovation involves using burn marks on layered rice paper, utilizing incense sticks instead of brushes to create paintings. This technique transforms traditional landscape and calligraphy paintings while conveying the ephemeral quality of ink art. His works have been collected by prestigious institutions such as the British Museum in London, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the Berkeley Art Museum in California, the Spencer Museum of Art at Kansas University, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, the Chinese Painting Research Institute in Beijing, Zhong Nan Hai in Beijing, the Shanghai Art Museum, the Shenzhen Art Museum, the Guangdong Museum of Art, and the Hong Kong Museum of Art.