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CHINESE CONTEMPORARY ART

The following five lots by artists Wu Yi, Ge Guanzhong, Xu Lei, Miao Xiaochun and Chen Ke range from beautiful, detailed contemporary ink works to sculptural digital paintings. Born in the 1960s and 1970s, these artists exhibit a deep and nuanced knowledge of both Chinese and European art history, often marrying the two in their work to create an innovative artistic vocabulary. While Wu Yi, Ge... CHINESE CONTEMPORARY ART

The following five lots by artists Wu Yi, Ge Guanzhong, Xu Lei, Miao Xiaochun and Chen Ke range from beautiful, detailed contemporary ink works to sculptural digital paintings. Born in the 1960s and 1970s, these artists exhibit a deep and nuanced knowledge of both Chinese and European art history, often marrying the two in their work to create an innovative artistic vocabulary. While Wu Yi, Ge Guanzhong, and Xu Lei experiment with traditional Chinese styles, techniques and even myths and narratives (lots 60 - 62), Chen Ke and Miao Xiaochun reference Renaissance murals, placing them within current sociopolitical contexts (lot 63 and 64).

Xu Lei, born in 1963 in Nantong, is well-known for his innovative, poetic ink paintings. Often large and theatrical, the paintings are created using unusual materials that have now become his trademark - Chinese ink and mineral colour on traditional scroll paper - and they retain the elegance and visual elements of traditional ink painting combined with a distinctly contemporary language. In the present lot, the skeleton of a crane, a symbol of peace and longevity, takes centre-stage, surrounded by screens adorned with intricate world maps, perhaps constituting a warning against the modern lifestyle of excess and negligence that is harming the natural world.

In his practice, the artist employs and pays tribute to the classical Chinese gongbi painting technique of precise, detailed outlines and brushstrokes, as well as colour application and ink wash. Gongbi was a style suited to a realist style of painting, originating in the golden age of the Han dynasty and refined and perfected during the Tang and Song eras. "In today's art world, Xu represents a new and noticeable trend of using [the] gongbi technique as a source of artistic vocabulary. Such experimentation is an attempt to leave behind questions of ink and brushwork, to reintegrate elements dethroned by past experimental ink painting practices (e.g., color, space, and narrative) into contemporary expression, thereby opening a new thread of practice different from abstract experimental ink." (Pi Li, "Departure and Distancing: Avant-Garde Reflection in Xu Let's Painting," cafa.com.cn, online) Xu Lei infuses these techniques with concepts from Western artists such as Rene Magritte, Yves Klein and Marcel Duchamp, while forging a unique aesthetic for Chinese ink painting.

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