Shanghai artist sees world with ‘different eye’
Print Edition
FOLLOWING its previous stop in New York, “Beyond the Image of Shanghai,” the solo-exhibition of Chinese artist Lu Chuntao is currently on display at the Asian Fusion Gallery in Washington DC through December 25. Organized by Asian Cultural Center and hosted by Asian Culture and Media Group, the exhibition features nearly 20 of Lu’s ink-wash paintings.
Through hazy moonlight, starry skies, misty dawns and poignant twilight, Lu creates images brimming with a sense of mystery and illusion. His skillful use of water and ink reveals a deep understanding of the classical practice of “substituting ink for color” but is simultaneously completely at home with the theoretical conceptions of modern abstract expression.
Born in 1965 on Shanghai’s Chongming Island, Lu is currently vice principal of the Shanghai Calligraphy and Painting Institute and executive director at the Shanghai Artist Association.
Lu says he uses “a different eye” to see natural surroundings.
He applies abrupt geometric shapes and big blocks of color to separate a subject from its surroundings — a challenge to traditional aesthetic tastes. His paintings reflect a sensibility that has opened to a wider natural world, an environment far broader than a limited private space.
A traditional artist for nearly two decades, Lu says that he “found himself” several years ago and now produces works with a wilder, explosive power. He commonly introduces a single color in a work, or big blocks of color across rice paper.
Lu switched from traditional ink-wash painting and bird-and-flower themes to unconventional and startling ink-washes of a rougher, more powerful nature.
“What I paint is not that important. The key is to infuse the flowers and birds with verve and spirit as well as form, sentiment and taste all at the same time,” he says.
He pursues a state that Huang Binhong (1865-1955) described as being “of absolute likeness and absolute unlikeness to the object.”
“My work is more like a short poem narrating a soliloquy from my heart as if it has discovered a musical rhythm that beats among these still points, lines and planes.”
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