New vistas unfold for landscape painter
Print Edition
SHANGHAI-BASED artist Chen Jialing has a strong emotional connection with Hangzhou, the city of his birth.
Early in 2013, he was the subject of a solo exhibition at the Zhejiang Art Museum featuring 10 massive-scale ink-wash painting depicting the scenery of his birthplace.
His latest Hangzhou-inspired creation, measuring 5 meters long and 2 meters high, was unveiled at the banquet hall that hosted foreign dignitaries visiting the city for the recent G20 Summit that concluded on Monday. The artist traveled to Hangzhou, which is his hometown, eight times over six months to create this epic work depicting the famed West Lake and its surrounding scenery and landmarks.
“This is certainly a special honor for an artist, as the city of Hangzhou is now the focus of the whole world,” he says with an excited tone. “I am so proud of the place.”
Born in 1937 in Hangzhou, east China’s Zhejiang Province, Chen rose to fame in the late 1980s. He first gained attention for his “Lotus” series, which fused traditional ink-wash techniques with modern flourishes. Chen is an innovator when it comes to applying Impressionist and Abstract techniques with traditional Chinese ink-wash paintings.
Lotus flowers have long been a stock subject among Chinese artists, but Chen’s depiction of them in light hues and smooth curves has distinguished him from his peers.
“Lotus flowers are always closely linked with the West Lake, and I’m too familiar with them. But I told myself that my lotuses must be different from the rest,” he says.
Over the past two decades, Chen has also made some crossover attempts at blending water-ink patterns with porcelain, silk clothing and classical rosewood furniture. Indeed, he has already opened a kiln to create his own ceramics and paints on qipao dresses and scarves.
“I like to try new things, and some say that I still retain an ‘amusing’ heart,” Chen says with a smile.
Two years ago, he even appeared on the red carpet at the opening of the Rome Film Festival. Chen was at the event for the premiere of the eponymously titled documentary “Chen Jialing,” produced by award-winning filmmaker Jia Zhangke. The film reflects changes in Chinese society over recent decades, as encountered through the life of Chen.
The film is one of only a handful of Chinese documentaries focused on the life of a single contemporary artist, as well as one of an even smaller number screened at an international film festival.
The film recounts how Chen, now in his late 70s, went to 12 famous mountains over a three-year period to create new landscape paintings.
During filming of the documentary, Chen went to Tibet for the first time.
“Usually at my age, many would sit and relax at home, but that’s not for me,” he says. “Life is too short, especially for me. I feel that I can even count down my days. But I still have many things on my to-do list. Luckily I was born with a strong body, so it is not difficult for me to climb mountains or create big work.”
Unlike the somewhat modest lotus paintings that launched his career, Chen’s epic mountain landscapes exude power and gravitas. “In my eyes, a mountain is akin to a person,” he says. “The knack for this project is to grasp the character of each peak.”
When mentioning the unique piece created for the G20 Summit, Chen says he used some new techniques to conjure up the beauty of West Lake.
“Hangzhou, in the ancient Chinese poems, is almost a paradise. One can use many adjectives to describe it, but these words are still not enough to reflect its charm,” he says. “West Lake is akin to a beautiful young lady with elegance and reservedness, so I applied the stipple technique, with layers of hues under my brushstrokes.”
Creating such a massive piece would surely daunt even the most active artist, but Chen jokes that during the process of creating the image he never missed a chance to indulge in his favorite passtime — mahjong.
“Don’t you think that playing mahjong reflects the Oriental philosophy?” he asks with a smile. “You never know what you will have in your hands at the beginning, and you never know what you will have at the next step. You have to adjust what you have based on what kind of pieces you pick up.
“It’s just like life — nothing can be planned at the beginning. You just follow the trends, either of life or of society. When I was born, the bombs of the Japanese invaders were everywhere in my hometown. But now, I am appearing on the big screen. Isn’t life unpredictable?”
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