Yangguang Booklet 0328 -...

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Yang Guang Inner World

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‘The word Hua means to paint, or a painting, in Chinese.’ Established in 2011, Hua Gallery specialises in the exciting and sometimes controversial space that is Chinese contemporary art. As Chinese contemporary art continues to fascinate and intrigue collectors around the world, demand and appetite for fresh and innovative art from this fast-‐changing region continues to escalate. Hua Gallery represents and exhibits cutting edge, stimulating works by established contemporary Chinese artists, as well as emerging contemporary Chinese artists who are not as yet "discovered" internationally. Hua Gallery adopts a distinctive business strategy by acquiring works from artists before selling them, as well as by exhibiting and selling works by artists on a commissions basis -‐ an approach which demonstrates a passion, dedication and commitment to the artists and also, importantly, provides confidence to art collectors who trust the gallery to help expand their collections. Hua Gallery’s founder and director, Shanyan Koder, has developed strong relationships with her artists, and hopes to build a Chinese contemporary art collection in her gallery that is different and inspirational. Every artist represented by Hua Gallery is chosen for their artistic individuality, the creative symbolism in their work, and the emotional energy their work creates. Hua Gallery is situated on the Albion Riverside, a prestigious residential block on the Battersea riverside, designed by world-‐renowned architects Foster and Partners. With close to 2,000 square feet of gallery space, Hua Gallery is London’s only Chinese contemporary art gallery with a permanent exhibition space of this size and scale.

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Yang Guang Yang Guang is recognized in Beijing as a significant emerging artist. His works have recently been given the official seal of approval in China, after winning the third prize at the China Olympics Motherland Proud of You-‐-‐Large Scale Paintings Exhibition in 2009. Several paintings by the artist were also acquired into Chinese governmental committees. In his Inner World – Landscape series Yang paints images from his idealistic inner world. The paintings carry traces of warm colours, purples, yellows, oranges, greens, yet they convey a deep sense of sombriety. The landscapes are beautiful, serene, and peaceful, a contrast to contemporary society in China today.

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BIOGRAPHY 1963 -‐ Present Graduated from Lu Xun Fine Art College, Department of Oil Painting, China Exhibitions The Art Works Exhibition in Guomao Gallery, 1991 The First Invitational Exhibition of Modern Art in Beijing Daopu Visual Art Center, 2002 The Invitational Exhibition of Small Paintings of Still Life in Beijing Daopu Visual Art Center, 2003 The Exchange Exhibition of China’s Contemporary Drawing in Beijing Changfugong Hotel Fusion-‐Digestion, Invitational Exhibition of China’s Contemporary Painting in 798 Space, 2007 Contemporary Painting Works Exhibition in Top Red Gallery, 798, 2008 Group exhibition in the East Bank Impression Gallery in 798 Space, 2008 Solo Exhibition in Beijing Daopu Visual Art Center, 2008 Solo Exhibition in East Bank Impression Gallery in 798, 2008 Invitational Exhibition of China’s Contemporary Famous Artists in Weifang Museum in Shandong, 2008 Motherland Proud of You -‐ Large Scale Paintings Exhibition in the Olympic Bird Nest Stadium, Beijing, 2009. Winning third prize, works acquired by the China Olympics Committee Founding Father of the Country, Great Man of the Generation, National Art Works Exhibition in Beijing Cultural Palace for Nationalities. Works acquired by China’s Modern Culture Research Center Asian Art Expo in China World Trade Center, Beijing, 2010 Group Exhibition of Contemporary Art in Gehua Art Museum, Beijing, 2010 Shanghai World Expo. Invitational Exhibition of China’s Art Week in the Theme Pavilion of Shanghai World Expo, 2010 Summer Exhibition of Contemporary Chinese Works, Hua Gallery, London, 2011

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Yang Guang’s Landscape Series, Images of his Inner World Wu Hong The sources of images in artworks fall into two categories. One comes from the objects that can be seen with our naked eyes. When they appear in artworks, we will incline to relate them with issues on nature and society. The other source of images, different from what we can see with naked eyes, stem from people’s inner world. Therefore, artists are probing into issues concerning human beings themselves when referring to this kind of images. Evidently, Yang Guang’s works belong to the second category. As a matter of fact, when we review the development of contemporary art in the northeast China, it turns out that the approach to reveal and present human’s spiritual world relying on image structures different from what we usually see has been a distinctive characteristic among many northeastern artists. This feature can even be traced back to the metaphysical painting school: inside Theodore Gericault’s grand Gothic building structures lingers nothing but the homeless spirit of modern people. In the 1980s, this Gericault-‐kind solitude became the main theme of the “Northern Group” whose members were mainly northeastern artists. This was by no means an imitation in terms of style and diagram, but the reflection on human’s ultimate destination originating from Europe at the beginning of last century retrieved widespread concern in China in the 1980s, leading the Chinese generation at that time to endless exploration. With the extensive penetration of commodity economy, great changes have taken place in Chinese society and people’s values since the 1990s. As a result, the widely accepted puritanical ideals and aspirations in the 1980s have been replaced by the prevalence of mercantilism. The expressions of contemporary art are changing with time too: colourful sensory stimulations have taken the place of lonesome contemplations. Having ushered in the 21st century, symbols, commodities and images turn out to be increasingly popular in contemporary art market. Under the impetus of the market, the aesthetic tastes of middle and upper class determine the quality of art as a commodity. In fact, contemporary art nowadays is confronted with a growing dilemma: on the one hand, critical thinking towards our society based on intellectuals’ standpoint reminds contemporary artists to keep a safe distance with society; on the other hand, the social role of art as a commodity also deems that art can no longer maintain the independent attitude in a growing commercialized society. This may reflect the tragedy of this intellectual generation: contemporary artists have to lay low their “posture” of clenched fists and promote their works as commodities to capitalists, the same as people wearing gorgeous costumes swarm to the streets joining in political campaigns. In these occasions, the theory of mass consumption has become their sole fig leaf as they can take advantage of the most popular theory to hide their most secular heart. Those stubborn artists who use the simplest way to complete their meditation on paintings are

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considered to be eccentrics in this circle. Increasingly, the combination of contemporary art and social conscience has been hindered by this vulgar value. Yang Guang’s works, in my opinion, seem a bit out-‐dated and demoded according to the present standards, but I find from his works a most valuable quality which is particularly precious nowadays: never reduce artworks to “pure commodities”. In fact, this ethics should act as the bottom line of basic integrity for all artists, however, tangible interests and “academic” inducement make many artists unable to comply with this basic requirement. When you see many middle-‐aged artists struggling clumsily to paint those symbols or even cartoons to cater to the market demand, it may dawn on you that to comply with the simplest ethics has become the most difficult task. I was not familiar with Yang Guang before. When my friend Lin Dong, one of Yang Guang’s classmates introduced me his paintings, the first impression told me that these paintings must be created by an artist who followed and stuck to his own heart, otherwise there would not be a strong sense of tragic persistence in his paintings. As mentioned above, the images appearing in Yang Guang’s works do not have corresponding prototypes in the real world, as these images act as a carrier to convey his inner feelings, a subjective “landscape”. First and foremost, Yang Guang’s paintings feature a chilly and gloomy atmosphere. The lines in the pictures manifest the image of “road”, which appears many times in his works. It is well known that the image of “road” in artworks generally represents the sub consciousness to escape to an ideal realm in the distance. However, the tree branches in his paintings, just like swords, thrust into the sky, intertwined like cobwebs and caltrops, which may imply the artist’s metaphor of a certain situation or feeling. When these two sentiments interweave together, a kind of psychological tension comes into being. I would rather perceive this tension as the artist’s inner monologue than justify it with realistic rationality. Hence, even though human characters are rarely seen in his works, or just given some simple strokes, there does exist a “person” in the landscape of his paintings -‐-‐-‐ a modern Don Quixote who dares to do everything impossible, which is the very image of a modern intellectual. In this sense, Yang Guang’s landscape paintings actually reflect the image of his inner world. Those images that do not exist in the real world in fact correspond to the inner world of his own which is filled with severity, ideal, perseverance and frustration.

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The Posture of Life Xu Xianliang American writer Henry David Thoreau once wrote the following sentence in the chapter “Higher Laws” of his well-‐known book Walden: “Every man is the builder of a temple, called his body, to the god he worships, after a style purely his own.” Yang Guang’s paintings strike me as if he is employing straight and succinct black bold lines to build a desolate and solemn temple of his own heart in the current age with tremendous grief and indignation. Yang Guang was my classmate at Department of Oil Painting in Lu Xun Academy of Fine Arts. At that time, his ineloquence and slight shyness formed a great contrast with his resolute and tough appearance. I can still remember that he was often goaded to recite large sections of the famous lines in the Japanese film Kimi yo fundo no kawa wo wataret. His voice was so deep and low that we competed to imitate him with great enthusiasm, but only receiving his clement smiles in return. Because of good academic performance, his exercise paintings were always hung on the walls in the classroom as good examples for students to learn from. Some of his works were even kept by the university permanently, which made me very envious at that time. Graduation witnessing our departure, we lost track of each other for many years until the reunion at a classmate gathering in Beijing. After some intimate chitchat, I came to know that he had been in Beijing for many years. I could feel between his words that time taught him a lot, but behind his self-‐possession and reticence, I also felt some sorrow. Later we went to his studio talking about the old days, and he told me a lot about his experiences. During the twenty years after graduation, his life underwent ups and downs even misfortunes, which made him feel helpless and depressed, but it was painting that eventually saved him -‐-‐-‐ after all, he couldn’t give up his life in pursuit of art. He engaged himself in painting day and night, and that kind of obsession and perseverance grew wild just like the trees he depicted. He also shared with me his views on human society and wars, about the Chinese and foreign artists he loved and admired, Western religions and Oriental Zen, as well as his confusion and struggle in his pursuit of art. Through chatting, I gradually made clear his life during these years, then admiration and sincere wishes to him couldn’t help welling up in my heart. In my view, he is an artistic martyr with strong convictions, who apprehends life with heart and testifies life with soul. Yang Guang uses calm strokes to capture the restlessness and anxiety of world, releasing his angry criticism that has given birth to his introvert paintings through his consciousness and apprehension. He is keenly aware that as a contemporary artist, he must absorb large amount of nutrients from Eastern and Western histories and traditions, the, in order to achieve his endless-‐seeking artistic realm. He selects the symbol of “trees” from thousands of physical images as the main character shown in his pictures. He abstracts

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the posture and spirit of trees to express his appeal for innocence and happiness as well as his aspiration for the freedom of life. Trees, in a certain sense, have become the totem of his artistic life. Yang Guang once told me that the memory about the landscape in his hometown was still fresh in his mind. He still remembered indulging his childhood playing wilfully in the mountains and jumping up and down in the woods. What a wonderful and unforgettable experience! Time flied, yet this memory became increasingly fresh, never fading. It is the trees and plants in the mountains that cultivated his temperament and nourished his art, and the images of childhood games occasionally appearing in his paintings add up certain inexplicable melancholy to the pictures, arousing our nostalgia for the pure and innocent past. It seems that even the children playing games in the paintings suffer some adults’ sorrow. In spite of a variety of trendy painting styles, Yang Guang follows his own heart and develops his unique style by getting rid of shadows, colours, and special relationship. Based on the concept of freehand brushwork, he creates his own artistic universe dominated by the colour of black and white out of the real world with a poetic melancholy. The trees in his paintings, reflecting no sense of season and time, stand there lonely, without direction or belonging. Stiff and withered trunks twist and turn, while twigs are intertwined resembling complex and unsettling thoughts. In the tension and confrontation between black and white, those trees, despite no sign of life, show utmost aspirations for life. Yang Guang constantly engages himself in the subtraction of life and art because it is his belief that rethinking nature and apprehending life represent a real return. He is attempting to figure out the true meaning of Laozi’s words: “One needs to increase knowledge yet decrease desire to realize Dao (the way of everything) day by day.” Thousands of beings take on their unique postures during the long process of self-‐growth in the earnest pursuit of sunshine. Yang Guang’s works reflect his present.

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Forbearance is Another Strength An Insight into Yang Guang’s Latest Works Hao Lixun The reason why artworks can touch people’s heart lies in an invisible strength inherent in artworks, the very force that sustains their artistic vitality. Different works feature distinctive artistic expressions owing to a variety of reasons such as the differences in themes and emotional expressions: some artworks bring audiences a direct and overwhelming sensory impact both visually and tactilely, while some others seem to have neither gorgeous colours, exaggerated compositions nor distinctive themes, leaving people a monotonous impression, but there always exists a magnificent and profound strength inside these artworks -‐-‐-‐ a strength of great forbearance. Hence, it is necessary for audiences to utilize their own culture thoughts and artistic cultivations to dig inside so as to enjoy a better experience of the significant strength of forbearance embedded in the artworks. Yang Guang’s latest series of works demonstrate this strength of forbearance. In his paintings, all the trees are standing there in an arrogant manner -‐-‐-‐ there are no leaves or flowers but bare trunks and branches stretching upright, with hazy mountains in the distance forming the background. Seemingly simple, all the depictive elements in the picture connote a certain heroic sentiment as lofty as majestic mountains and seas, which not only reflects the artist’s profound painting expertise, but more importantly, embodies his great humanist sentiment. From these static, withered, monotonous, or even dead trees, the artist succeeds in discovering a silent and long-‐enduring strength of forbearance. Not confined to details, he employs numerous large brush strokes and colour patches, and the traces left by the large strokes and the division between lines and colours form a clear, natural but random overlapping, giving insight into a thoughtful and sentient soul. A slight black colour reinforces this effect, impressing the audience with a heroic and unrestrained spirit. All the tree trunks and branches have a strong and persistent momentum to stretch upward, unfolding a picture both static and dynamic. With both rapid strokes and succinct colours rendering an awe-‐inspiring and solemn feeling, the painting language here is relatively aggressive and abrupt, as if going to jump out from the pictures; in contrast, the depiction of the far corner of the pictures demonstrates another relatively gentle painting technique full of beauty and delicacy. The landscape and houses in the distance reflect a scene of traditional Chinese residential houses, intangible yet romantic, filling the paintings with a mysterious beauty, which arouses people’s interest to unveil the mystery by getting close further. The artist adopts an overall use of subdued colour, which enables the audience to experience a sense of belonging while pursuing spiritual sustenance, then a unique affection comes into being and flourish slowly. This very moment sees the integration of thought and reality. Artworks of this kind bring not only visual pleasure, but also a self-‐ablution of mind and soul, making it easier for audiences to engender more reflections in their spiritual exploration of the paintings. The depictions of trees in front and those afar form a sharp contrast as they are of different sizes, diameters and emphases. This composition of comparison manifests a strong sense of space, thus reflecting an overwhelming visual penetration, together with the combination and comparison of the brightness and darkness of colour, which gives rise to a gradual and unconscious change of

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traditional aesthetic concepts. Whether be perceptible or imperceptible, that change, in my viewpoint, is successful for the artist, as he is able to master art in a smooth fashion, with the entire pictures becoming increasingly audience-‐friendly. The most prominent feature of Yang Guang’s series of works lies in the emphasis on using lines which plays the role as a major carrier linking and penetrating the content and thought of the paintings. Those strong black lines run through the pictures vertically and horizontally with a dominating presence, drawing people’s attention all of a sudden. In addition to his keen intuition, the proficient use of lines is more attributed to the perfect combination of his generous and straightforward temperament typical as a Chinese in the northeast with the heroic spirit of modern China’s rapid development. This process of incorporating individual experience into the spirit of great humanistic care in the current social environment represents the best experience of self-‐creation and practice. The outline of colour patches consisting of intense lines takes on a powerful sense of three-‐dimension and perspective, making the pictures full of an invisible strength whose existence as a long-‐enduring strength of forbearance surpasses both rationality and soberness. Apart from showing his subjective intentions, the artist in many occasions retains certain occasionality in his paintings, which leads to some unconscious creations during the painting process. The composition of some works, for instance, seems particularly arbitrary, since it’s not the artist’s intention to pursue a particular painting angle, which makes the picture very vivid and natural without pretension. This has something in common with Western impressionism. Only by being endowed with vitality of life, can landscape and still life pull the heartstrings of audiences, which is the very reason contributing to the achievements of impressionism. Yang Guang attaches great importance to the transition and coordination of colours in order to highlight the vitality of the depicted objects. He makes full use of the changes of colour to depict the changing seasons experienced by the trees, in a hope to capture all these natural impressions in a certain space with his own feelings. The trees in the space represent a spiritual strength of low profile and enduring forbearance: no matter how the environment changes, the trees maintain the direction and posture of growing straight upward; as long as spring comes, they will bring this strength into full play and become more positive and vigorous. Having combined Western impressionism and traditional Oriental culture, Yang Guang’s oil paintings feature distinctive personal painting language. Various ideas and cultural elements embedded in his works don’t make themselves readily visible in the canvas, instead, audiences need to have a spiritual resonance with the artist relying on the information provided by the paintings and then gradually conduct further interpretation. This interpretation process embarks on a journey giving insights into Oriental and Western cultures as well as the artist’s thoughts and feelings. However, rather than a culture trek, this journey helps audiences explore the flowing happiness of art while obtaining consolation for their own souls.

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01 Untitled, Inner World – Landscape Series (2011) Oil on canvas, 510 x 200 cm

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02 Untitled, Inner World -‐ Landscape Series (2011) Oil on canvas, 160 x 80

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03 Untitled, Inner World -‐ Landscape Series (2011) Oil on canvas, 400 x 170 cm

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09 Untitled, Inner World – Landscape Series (2011) Oil on Canvas, 120 x 90 cm

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12 Untitled, Inner World – Landscape Series (2011) Oil on Canvas, 80x 60 cm

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Date post:	20-Mar-2018
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Yangguang Booklet 0328 -...

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