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Playful horses canter into new year
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My heart is like a wild horse,” says 73-year-old Chinese-American painter Dennis Hwang, as he unveils his “Galloping Horse” exhibition for the upcoming Year of the Horse.
Praised as an Eastern Matisse, Hwang delivers a kaleidoscope of flowing horses that are bold, playful, colorful, often abstract and surrealist, on both rice paper and canvas. They are also like fanciful calligraphy horses.
Hwang, who lived in the US for 40 years and now lives in Taiwan, brings horses from traditional Chinese paintings cantering into the 20th century.
An exhibition of horse canvases and small sculptures is underway at 1788 E.A.T.
“Like a horse, my heart cannot put up with shackles and longs to run away,” says Hwang, who does not look his 73 years.
Born in Xiamen, Fujian Province, in 1941, Hwang moved to Taiwan in 1950. In 1971 the US State Department invited him for an exhibition. In 1972 he studied at the Pratt Institute in New York.
“Even though I have been living in New York for 40 years, the Orient is where I grew up as well as the landscape from which come the qualities, knowledge, and ideas of my art,” Hwang says.
He says his paintings “don’t belong” to the traditional ink-wash school by any means, but they are rooted in it.
“What I want to maintain is not the form but the spirit under the brilliant colors of my works,” he says.
His paintings are filled with bold, free strokes, vivid colors, fragments and symbols.
He has been compared with Henri Matisse and painters of the Fauvist (wild beast) movement of the early 20th century, which emphasized color over realistic representation.
The texture of his paintings appears thick and coated as if with glue, resembling the surface of porcelain.
Hwang’s horses are primarily composed of lines: few simple strokes depict gallant stallions and graceful mares.
He recently visited the National Palace Museum in Taipei and after seeing the calligraphy of Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) master Zhu Zhishan, he infused his works with similar techniques.
Date: Through February 16, 11am-7pm
Address: 1/F, 1818 Nanjing Rd W.
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