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He’s artistic journey takes the road less traveled
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PRACTICE does not always make perfect, especially in art. Some artists just have natural talent. He Sen is one of the gifted ones.
“Return at Dusk, Enlightenment at Dawn” is his latest solo exhibition featuring nearly 20 paintings at Longmen Art Projects through the end of June.
He is somewhat of a maverick in the art world, bursting onto the scene in 1999 with a series of decadent paintings of young women smoking cigarettes or playing with toys. Although the women wore vacant expressions, something about them hinted that they were anything but cold and distant.
The Yunnan Province-born painter later shocked the art scene by shifting his focus to traditional ink-wash paintings.
“I am fascinated with the idea of using the techniques and skills I learned in school to recreate the water-and-ink paintings that our culture has passed on to us,” he says.
The painter has been lavished with praise from critics, but he takes it all in stride and insists that he doesn’t do anything different.
“I don’t use any special materials, just the ordinary oil and knife,” says He, smiling. “I am flattered by the warm comments. Today when my paintings are deemed ‘very traditional and very Chinese,’ they really only refer to the outer shell. Despite the same patterns, my way of composing and constructing a painting is actually the polar opposite of how the original masters worked.”
Unlike others, He divided his paintings into three parallel scrolls featuring different colors under different time and space. The effect was incredible and critics gushed with praise for these paintings.
He’s interest in ink-wash masterpieces evolved in 2002, when he visited a classical Suzhou garden at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
“All of a sudden I felt that everything I had learned about Western art was not worth mentioning any more,” he says. “I never felt so genuinely shocked.”
It’s hard to believe that in 1989, when he graduated from the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute, He was a firm believer in Western culture. Back then, he says, he thought traditional Chinese culture was nothing but obsolete tales of ancient artists and a few worthless antiques.
But with modernization shaking China to its roots in the 1990s, He’s ideas began to change.
“It’s hard to overestimate the impact this period had on Chinese people, especially the younger generation,” he says. “Unlike their resolute fathers who were dedicated to building wealth in the 1990s, most young people just felt confused and helpless when facing the overwhelming transformation of society. But before they realized anything, their youth had been ruthlessly consumed and their prime time had gone.
“Now perhaps you can imagine how desperate I was when I struggled as an unknown artist without a fixed job for years,” He continues. “For a time, I even considered becoming a designer like many of my peers to earn a living.”
Lucky for us, he didn’t.
Date: Through June 30, 10am-6pm
Address: Suite 102, Tian’an Center Building, 338 Nanjing Rd W.
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