Preface by Curator
Tony Chang
Artist Chen Qi (b. 1963) witnessed the rise of the 85 New Wave during his college days, but he
did not directly reflect the confusion of social transformation in his creations. His personality is
introspective and serene, and the path of his artistic development resembles that of such artists as
Xu Bing and Wang Huaiqing – searching the interior of cultural traditions for the key to cracking
contemporary malaise. Since the mid 1980s, Chen has stayed faithful to his heart, engaging in
meditations on individual existence while maintaining China’s literati tradition with a
contemporary awareness. Following the path of the changes in Chen Qi’s art, passing through
those tranquil images and looking back and pondering the shifts in his subject matter can be a
fruitful journey of the spirit, one which provides a case study in how an artist born in the 1960s
was able to break through the limitations of modernism and stride forward into an exploration of
the contemporary spirit.
Chen Qi’s artistic practice is a testament to the solemn perplexity of an individual personality
amidst the ashes of history. He retained clarity in his heart, persevering in and updating the ancient
oriental artistic medium of water-based printmaking, bringing a contemporary sheen to the
traditional. In the classical imagery of his early works, objects became carriers for his heart’s
wanderings. Over the past decade he has made a natural shift to the abstract. His path moved from
modernist aesthetic exclamations to a process of inner discovery; Zen, which is inextricably linked
to culture, played an important role as a bridge, but he quickly awoke from the fetters of the
religious spirit and entered into a probing pursuit of the fundamental questions of art and life, such
as time, infinity and finite. These questions are at the root of existential awareness for Chinese
artists. His metaphysical thinking has brought splendor to once ordinary imagery, conquering
hearts with the power of an intuitional spirit rich with contemporary sentiments.
In Twenty Four Solar Terms, he no longer harbored nostalgic feelings towards esthetic natural
landscapes. Instead, he incorporated man-made scenery, such as ordinary inanimate objects and
bleak railroad tracks into the pictures. In this transformed natural space, the merciless revolutions
of time dominate and transcend the landscape and individual existence. Chen Qi’s infatuation with
objects reached an extreme in the Lotus and Ancient Stringed Instruments series. Using a carving
knife and ink marks, he extracted these objects from their historical and cultural space and placed
them in an abstract space for close observation. Beginning with simple shapes, the external
appearance of the objects was peeled away under observation, revealing the rational spirit and
philosophy of life concealed within. The Water series also uses abstract forces to express man’s
perplexity along the banks of the river of time.
Creatively, Chen Qi is not one to drift with the tides. His independence is an expression of the
cultural confidence and sensitive spirit of Chinese artists. In his words, “Painting is my way of
pondering culture and my path for knowing myself. In my creations, sometimes two themes move
in tandem, each with their own spiritual tone. For instance, Ancient Stringed Instruments, Ashtray
and Fish in Water emphasize careful distinctions and meticulous style, while Twenty Four Solar
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Terms is full of perceptivity and emotional expression. It was about hearing the sounds of change
in the world by listening to the passage of the seasons. Butterfly and Faramita are full of cultural
symbolism.” What remains unchanged in his works are the tranquil atmosphere and the distant,
faint emotions, an embodiment of oriental artists’ unique perceptive methods, which expresses a
profound mind, a deep understanding of beauty, clear vision and rich emotions through silent
observation and cautious action.
The art of water-based printmaking is a continuation of the infatuation with the traces of objects
from Chinese ink and wash painting, and rubbings of ancient stele inscriptions. Through more
than two decades of perseverance, Chen Qi has enriched the expressive power of water-based
printmaking language by expanding the medium into the unknown realms of the conceptual, and
pushing his works beyond the limitations of painting. For Chen Qi, water printmaking is the act of
a witness of civilization and history revisiting the past and consoling the present, as well as a ritual
of the artist’s spirit soaring into the unknown realm of the soul.
For his recent work, the Notations of Time series, his path of artistic transformation has extended
even further, entering into the depths of the inner world.
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