HONG ZHU AN
Born 1955
HONG ZHU AN - A LONG JOURNEY
Source:
press release
December 12 - 27, 2003
Plum Blossoms Gallery Hong Kong
The directors of Plum Blossoms Gallery take great pleasure in presenting Hong
Zhu An- A Long Journey, a solo exhibition of the renowned Singapore-based
Chinese artist.
Recognised as one
of the leading contemporary Chinese artists, Hong Zhu An's combination of
pseudo-calligraphy and abstract color fields successfully create a kind of
visual symphony which lead the audience to a journey of meditation. Hong Zhu An
– A Long Journey will be on view at the gallery from December 12 to 27, 2003.
Three years after his first solo exhibition in Hong Kong, Hong Zhu An continues
to explore the blending of calligraphic characters and layers of colored ink
wash on traditional Chinese rice paper. Application of subtle tones of blues and
greens defines a spatial depth which suggests a contemplative quality to his
work. Built upon the colored background are various forms of calligraphic
strokes and characters, that create rhythmic patterns to excite the eyes of the
audience. The tension derived from within not only produces brand-new
composition of Hong Zhu An's paintings, but triggers our bygone emotions of the
past.
Hong Zhu An was born in Shanghai in 1955. He studied at the Shanghai Art & Craft
Institute from 1973 to 1976 and at Szechuan Fine Art University from 1982 to
1983. In 1997, Hong received the Master of Arts degree from the Royal Melbourne
Institute of Technology in Australia. Hong has been a full time artist for the
last decade and his works are acquired by private and public collections around
the world.
Going Forward
Source:
press release
12/2/2004 - 1/15/2005
Opening reception: 2 Dec 2004, 6-8pm
Red Dream 2004
Classically trained in calligraphy since his early youth, Hong Zhu An has been
among a select group of painters pushing literati arts into a more cosmopolitan,
contemporary realm. Best known for his work with abstract color fields that
reference several thousand years of Chinese art through surface texture and
tone, Hong Zhu An returns to the fundamental aesthetic of the line in his new
paintings. Taking inspiration from the dramatic, drooping forms of willow
branches and other tree imagery, he decomposes calligraphic elements into
essential gestures that play fitfully between representation and text while
still incorporating great swathes of ambient color and tonal depth suggesting
elemental phenomena or the visualization of temporal reverberations.
Hong Zhu An’s paintings have developed out of the artist’s own intensely
personal journey in search of creative resonance, roving nomad-like across the
annals of Chinese material culture to the social realism of Communist China’s
academies, street arts in Sydney, and his current residence in Singapore.
Included in Going Forward are a number of paintings inspired by a recent trip he
took to Bali, where the play of light through the dense, matrix-like branching
of the island’s volcanic highland canopies evokes an alchemy of horizon: a
lyrical tension between visual immediacy and extinguishment that complements the
artist’s chosen media of richly textured mineral pigments on paper. Here, Hong
Zhu An masterfully reinvents the painted surface as a terrain to be traversed, a
living, breathing ecology both dangerous and enchanting that demands of its
explorers a courageous, inquisitive first-step forward.
Hong Zhu An rose to prominence on the Singaporean art scene after winning the
prestigious UOB Painting of the Year Grand Award in 1994. He was born in 1955 in
Shanghai, China, into a family of painters. After training at the Shanghai Art &
Craft Institute from 1973—1976, he became an assistant lecturer there until
1989, also taking a sabbatical from 1982—1983 to study under Professor Huan Wei
Yi at the Sichuan Art Academy. Hong Zhu An left China for Australia in 1989,
moving to Singapore in 1993 where he earned his MA from the Royal Melbourne
Institute of Technology, Australia, at LaSalle-SIA College of Arts, Singapore,
in 1997.
Plum Blossoms Gallery
555 West 25th Street
New York, NY 10001, USA
Tel: 212 719 7008
Website: http://www.plumblossoms.com
Opening Hours:
Tuesday - Saturday, 10:30am - 6:30pm; close on Sunday & Monday
Venue:
Plum Blossoms Gallery, New York
