Created By
Wai Hong
Ink and colour on silver Xuan paper on wood
Curator
Luke Chapman
HONG Wai orchestrates a fascinating dialogue between traditional Chinese landscape painting and contemporary material exploration. The integration of lace ink painting into these mountainscapes represents more than mere material innovation – it suggests a reimagining of how traditional landscapes might be viewed through a feminine lens. What's particularly compelling is how HONG navigates the space between abstraction and representation. The distant peaks, rendered in soft watercolor washes, create a misty atmosphere characteristic of traditional Chinese landscapes, while the lace elements introduce a contemporary material vocabulary that speaks to themes of craft, gender, and cultural hybridity. This work represents a significant contribution to the ongoing discourse about the evolution of traditional Chinese painting in contemporary art. By introducing traditionally feminine materials into the historically masculine domain of landscape painting, HONG creates a subtle but powerful commentary on gender roles in artistic tradition while opening new possibilities for the genre's future development.
This diptych presents a contemporary reimagining of traditional Chinese landscape painting through an innovative mixed-media approach. The composition spans two panels, depicting a serene mountain landscape where peaks and valleys are rendered in a combination of watercolor washes and intricate black lace patterns. The foreground mountains are crafted from layered black lace with complex floral and geometric patterns, while the distant peaks dissolve into subtle washes of blue-gray watercolor against a cream-colored background. The traditional elements of Chinese landscape painting – the balanced composition, the play between void and form, and the rhythmic arrangement of peaks – are maintained while being radically reinterpreted through the artist's unique material choices. Each panel is marked with the artist's seal, following traditional painting conventions. The artist's technical execution is particularly noteworthy in how it manages to maintain the essential qualities of traditional shanshui painting while introducing entirely new textural elements. The lace-formed mountains in the foreground carry an unprecedented tactile quality, their patterns creating a complex interplay of light and shadow that recalls the traditional texturing techniques of cunfa (皴法) in Chinese landscape painting.
Created By
Wai Hong
93 x 174 cm | 37 x 69 in
Framed 188 x 176 cm
2023
