For May 2019, Soka Art‧Taipei is proud to invite artists Liu Qunghe and Chen Shuxia in hosting Immersion and Spreading: Duet Exhibition of Liu Quinhe and Chen Shuxia. This joint exhibition can be seen as an extension of The Power of Academy held in Soka Beijing in March 2019. Aside from making their own works, Mr. Liu and Ms. Chen are also teaching at the Central Academy of Fine Arts, where they both worked tirelessly to give rise to a new generation of young artists over the years. For this particular reason, Soka have invited, for the first time, these great artists to Taipei to exhibit their works from 2006 to present day, and present how the pair of iconic academic artists in modern Chinese art express daily life in a more profound and introspective way.

About Immersion and Spreading

Immersion and Spreading consists of two parts. For immersion, it means that when ink is immersed into the fiber of paper, that piece of paper becomes a vessel for inclusiveness and tolerance, where the released emotions find reasons in the sense of rituality. Spreading, on the other hand, is a totally different sensation. From a state without borders to actively restricting shapes, it all represents the boundary of thought and the unboundedness of the field of thinking. Whether immersion or spreading, and no matter what they express respectively, they are both pursuing an eternal theme within a certain length of time. In here, while the picture may be a snapshot of a instant, it is also a proof of multiple thinking. The direction shown by the picture may allow different imaginations and spaces for different viewers. It’s not a deliberate creation, but a natural expression after a subconscious comprehension of one’s inner senses and touches.

-- Liu Qinghe and Chen Shuxia

About Immersion and Spreading

Liu Qinghe and Chen Shuxia are both important and iconic artists from the post-Chinese economic reform era. While Liu works with colored ink wash painting, Chen prefers oil painting. Although one of them uses Chinese painting method and the other Western, and that they look totally different, they actually both expresses the Western innovation and the calm quality of Oriental traditional arts. The two artists both embraces their abundant passion toward art and exercise their endless quest, where they start with their initial ideal and life experiences, then enrich those with the meditation, thinking and absorption they did over the years. They then express all their feelings with their unique visual art language, turning their instantaneous feelings into an eternal picture, leaving behind the pure emotions and situations most closely associated with everyday life for the generation. Such a plain and simple artistic personality made their works shine with a introverted brightness, making both of them representative of the traditional quality of Chinese culture as well as the questing mindset of modern arts.

Immersed in Nature

Liu Qinghe has long devoted himself to utilizing modern ink wash art language and discovering the possibilities of different interpretations. He created a highly characteristic, introverted and mature style unique to himself, and is thus a practicer and irreplaceably important figure of modern Chinese ink wash art. He was once a dominant figure in urban ink wash painting, producing works that expresses the weariness and sense of powerlessness of contemporary urban people against the macroscopic social issues and the weight of history, and is thus iconic to the new cultural phenomena between individuals, people and society, as well as people and nature.

 In recent years, the focus of his art style gradually shifted back to himself, where he concentrates on returning to mother nature and the emotions of the instant, and lead modern ink wash to a more spiritual aspect. His works are still themed around characters, but those characters are now put in a natural context, as seen in Spreading Water, The Three Crouching, The Six Tastes and Step Safely. When the ink is immersed in the fiber of paper and allowed to shed and wash around freely, the combination and cumulation of different colors gives rise to the natural depth of space and layers from colored ink washing. The thin ink lines silhouettes the women walking around the mountainous rocks and foliage, or frolic near creeks and lakes. Despite they seem laid back and satisfied, they’re not as healthy, active, comfortable as they seem to be, but instead carries some melancholic, disturbed and confused personality. The hair depicted as individually separated, as if affected by static electricity, the eyebrows are slightly tightened, the eyes are unfocused and the edges of the lips point downwards. Those are the unique features of Liu’s characters, expressing a sense of melancholic unrest that symbolises the “sub-heathiness” mindset of modern people toward their living environment. Sub-healthiness refers to a transitional state between healthiness and illness, when the mind and body are engulfed in chaos, but no apparent signs of sickness can be observed. Although the characters in the works are enjoying nature, their minds are not genuinely stable and organized. Perhaps this is exactly what Liu realized after he started to observe more closely the subtle relationship between human and nature. With his plain, reserved and moderated ink wash language as well as his introspective way of self-discovery, he leaves his temporary remarks about human and nature.

The Lifestyle of Calm Spreading

Chen Shuxia’s works, just like herself, has a silent, peaceful and gentle quality. Even for expressing the simplest daily life object, she would still only use the purest colors, lines and textures to express it. Toward the end of the 1980s, she has created a series of still life paintings using flowers as her theme. Then in the early 90s, she participated in two important exhibitions, namely the World of Female Painters held by Central Academy of Fine Arts in 1990 and the New Generation Fine Arts Exhibition in 1991. The two exhibitions laid the foundation to her position in modern Chinese history of fine arts, and also determined her future direction of art exploration. During the progress of contemporary Chinese history of fine arts in the 20th century, Chen’s works have demonstrated the rise of female arts at the time as well as the debut of a new generation of artists. It was an end to a passionate and worrying 80s and the start of a daily-life-centered, detailed and mentally enriched 90s.

Her recent works have a tendency of being more metaphysical and surreal. In this exhibition, aside from Plant, which is more closely associated with the traditional style of still life, both the 2008 series of single-colored still life series (such as Northern Dipper, Three Fruits, Lake Blue) and the 2015 series of 45-degree rotated square canvas works (such as Cold Green, Four and +) are consisted by simple colors throughout the whole frame. Additionally, these paintings all featured yellow, aging marks or burnt edges on the staggered edge of the canvas, as to represent the border of her thoughts in everyday life, in contrast to the unboundedness of the field of thinking. In the calm, elegant and Zen-ish frame, there is no excessive decoration, but only still life of everyday lifestyle that are silently engulfed by colors. Without being limited by the superficial realism, she uses the most minimalist and plain art language to convey the true emotions within the depths and the introverted side of our lives, and turn the instantaneous feelings into eternal memories.

While Liu Qinghe’s colored ink wash paintings are vessels of Immersion, Chen Shuxia’s oil paintings are the extensions of Spreading, both of which are progresses for artists to understand their lives and repeatedly self-reflect. They then used their most precise art techniques and thoughts to combine Chinese and Western spirits of art, in order to discuss about the momentary enlightenment during the eons of time and transfer it into eternity. Their works are truly worthy for viewers to slowly admire when tasting a cup of quality tea, and feel the philosophy and depth hidden within them.