Zhang Wen’s brushstrokes are simple and forthright, a style that amplifies her narrative about childhood innocence. Her use of colour, tonal variation and colour saturation is reminiscent of traditional Chinese ink, and her exceptional composition and perspective reveals an uncommon intelligence. Her art has the distinctive feel and atmosphere of Chinese ink, yet at the same time is distinctive with her own intimately personal and experimental language.
Jia Youfu displays superb techniques of ink-accumulating, ink-splashing and ink-splitting, thus establishing an art form and personality unique to his own. His art career began with his enrolment in the Central Academy of Fine Arts in 1960, under the tutelage of Li Keran, Ye Qianyu, Li Kuchan, Zong Qixiang and He Haixia. Following his graduation, he devoted his life to the teaching and creation of Chinese landscape painting. In recent years, Professor Jia has been exploring how the inner vicissitudes of nature show through in his brand of Chinese landscape painting. His work has influenced new generations of artists and expanded the horizon of contemporary Chinese art, continuing the early ground-breaking work of Huang Binghong and Li Keran.
Thoughtful and intimate, Chinese artist Du Xue’s works are an ethereal perspective into girlhood. In delicately layered compositions of acrylic on silk, her insouciant style captures a seemingly intangible femininity with artful subtleness. Using a variety of silk – including imported Japanese silk, faux Japanese silk, and Chinese silk—Du Xue achieves a variety of textures that captures an exquisite layering unique to each piece. She makes use of diluted acrylic and Chinese ink together with the characteristic absorbency of silk to create a wash effect. Her technique is a remarkably unique fusion of western painting and Chinese style ink wash. Each work is a refreshing vignette into the median of girlhood adolescence, revealing the artist’s intuitive flair for lyricism and artistry.
With a formal background in oil painting, Akio Harada depicts human emotions in the shapes of animals in his endeavor to explore the gap between everyday life and fantasy with poeticism and delicate tenderness. He used to draw only large paintings of subjects, like faceless dogs, which were somewhat violent and out-of-place. However, after having a child, Akio began to approach painting with the mindset of creating art for others. As a father and a painter, Akio enjoys immortalizing his child’s reactions through art. His keen observation allows him to condense and reflect the nuances of human emotions on animals, breathing life into his works. His muted palette colors the living space in a comfortable fashion.
Indonesian artist Taufiq.HT’s oeuvre expresses the traits of a quintessential Western miniatures: compact and packed with details. A modern interpretation of the still-life genre, Taufiq.HT’s style is an invigorating take on the centuries-old Western genre of painting. With vibrant and surrealist form, the artist’s stylized interiors are a contemporary execution of a genre that for centuries, captured the social milieu and objects of its period. Framed with meticulously carved frames, the geometrical designs are a colourful interrogation of the interior and exterior world.
