POSTSCRIPT
Since I began organising the exhibition Wild Imagination, a stream of issues about contemporary ink art has been racking my brain. I perused a series of hard-won research results of predecessors and learned that these issues had been heatedly discussed as early as in the 1990s. A theoretical system also took shape in the past 20 years. What follows are some of my cursory understandings of the issues and references on the way that some participating Macao artists express their understandings and participation in contemporary ink art.
Ink was originally a creative medium. Why has contemporary ink art become an ‘artistic language’?
Contemporary western art no longer distinguishes artistic media from artistic forms. Artists, based on their ‘ideas’, select different media to express their thoughts. Ink art is a traditional Chinese art medium, like oil paintings, its western counterpart, but why can it break through its attributes as a medium and turn into a contemporary ‘artistic language’ after it has been contemporised? Ink is no longer a creative medium, but a creative spirit. The curator Pi Daojian describes it as the ‘symbol of Chinese culture and collective aesthetic experience’. It continues the non-specific realistic expression of Chinese paintings. With these evocative and soulful artworks employing ‘imagery’, ink art is ushered into the global artistic context and has morphed into a certain category in contemporary art.
Historically influenced by western art, Macao’s contemporary ink art scene is experiencing a diverse development. We can see artworks that feature expressions by using ‘imagery’ through the traditional ink medium and by incorporating new media. Macao artist Chang Kuok Meng’s ‘Vastness of the Lofty Moon and Stars’ takes on a strong contemporary feel without compromising the traditional Chinese painting elements. Through abstract concepts, concrete symbols and freehand brushwork effects, some obscure impressions have been transformed into abstraction. The virtual concept is depicted into reality. Macao’s ink art pioneer Lampo Leong lays out ‘rhythmic vitality’, an aesthetic ideal celebrated in the ancient Chinese painting theories, by adopting contemporary new media to create a virtual sensory context through his work, ‘Inkniverse’, an immersive ink art experience.
Does the westernisation of Chinese paintings represent contemporary ink art? How do we define contemporary ink art?
Chinese paintings have undergone various stages of modernisation. Many senior artists brought in western art concepts through their studies in Europe and Japan. They refuted and questioned the aesthetics of traditional literati paintings, and advocated the innovation of Chinese paintings. Hence, contemporary ink art was reinvented with new genes out of its traditional predecessor. After decades of reflection, practice and persistence by artists, contemporary ink art has broken free from ‘paradigm shift’, ‘modern grafting’ and ‘the westernisation of ink art’. Through different stages of the ink art movement, the art form has morphed into a unique and new ‘artistic language’ that carries through the Chinese cultural characteristics and identity. It is compatible with the ‘ideas of cultivation of mind and metaphysics’, while adopting contemporary concepts. In the term ‘contemporary ink art’, ‘contemporary’ does not refer to an era but an ideology. Its subject matters break away from traditional motifs of flowers, birds, mountains and rivers, and extend to reflection and criticism on issues ranging from social and living environments to globalisation. Contemporary ink art consists of such extensive implications that its definition cannot be simply summarised. Artists convey their understandings and practice of contemporary ink art through their own artistic languages. Macao artist Lio Man Cheong depicts the details of the local cultural life from his perspective in the works ‘Performance’ and ‘The Quiet and Peaceful Years’, while Dixon Lei’s ‘Memories of the Small City’ adopts a three-dimensional installation to reflect upon the ‘formatted’ urban landscape by presenting the people, customs, and scenery of the small town in square grids.
How does contemporary ink art go beyond the tradition of bi mo (techniques of brush-and-ink)?
Brush-and-ink has a specific significance in Chinese culture and represents a collective and humanistic experience of Chinese people. Developed in the mid-1990s, the experimental ink art movement appropriated modern or postmodern artistic techniques from the west, deconstructed traditional ink art languages, and created works that reflected conceptually upon social and humanistic issues. However, traditional brush-and-ink remained as the mainstream medium. In contrast, western contemporary art primarily focuses on artistic presentation where concept and orientation are priorities, and the medium is only deemed a vessel. With the advancement of information technology, instant communication and the new virtual sensory world provide contemporary ink art which is entering the global context with a brand-new visual art experience. Since the 21st century, contemporary ink art expressions have already deviated from the fixed ink art mediums and traditional brushwork techniques. It carries through the spirit of traditional ink art with open-minded application of various media and conceptual methods. In her 2019 work ‘Stroll in the Park Seriously’, Macao artist Lu Shaoyi reflects upon traditional and contemporary styles by avoiding applying practiced techniques and by breaking down her existing creative framework. Cindy Ng Sio Ieng, who has further her study in London, attempts to minimise the reliance of ink art on paper, writing brushes and ink in her highly dynamic work ‘April 2020’. The innovative work adopts video, photography, and interactive technology. It reveals the unique essence of ink through an interdisciplinary and cross-media ink art language. While retaining the traditional roots, she ‘depicts’ the realm of ink art with a contemporary mindset and media.
After decades of practice, modern and contemporary ink art is still exploring its potential to go global and into the future. Undoubtedly, many issues are still being fathomed, pondered, and solved. While contemplating contemporary ink art, I wonder whether we will go through the three stages of revelation as the Zen wisdom indicates, ‘First there is ink, then there is no ink, then there is.’
Vivien, Lei Heong Hong
Exhibition Coodinator