An Ancient Echo in Modern Signs

Zhang Pingjie, New York

Ever since the onset of the new wave art movement in China in the mid-1980s that subverted Chinese ink art traditions, there have been numerous artists experimenting with new styles and methods.

This is especially true for those Chinese artists living in the West who are impacted by cultural differences and who must constantly negotiate between two cultures. They are faced with the challenge to integrate these cultural contrasts and to transcend contemporary Chinese ink art standards. While this is a difficult and sometimes painful journey, there do not seem to be other alternatives.

Even though Qin Feng now devotes himself to the creative work of ink on paper, in the early 1980s he was mostly involved in avant-garde and experimental art. The trends at the time favored anti-establishment and avant-garde works. Many artists experimented with major modern art styles. To Qin Feng, while he also experimented with these methods, such a trajectory was not for him. Ultimately he still finds himself drawn to the creative energy of ink and paper, and the two-dimensional world of ink on paper.

With his solid foundation and training in traditional Chinese calligraphy and his involvement in the aforementioned new wave art movements, Qin Feng became an important force to be reckoned with in the world of contemporary Chinese ink paintings.

One could already see the grandeur and ease in his early ink on paper works. Like many other ink paintings, however, his early works focused mostly on the technical level of experimentations with composition and ink-application techniques.

It was in the early 1990s that Qin Feng’s style matured and his works attracted great international attention. Between 1991 when he was invited to give solo exhibits in four European countries (Austria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Portugal) and 1997 when he moved to Berlin, Germany, his styles went through profound changes. His post-1997 works started to reflect strong conceptual elements. While he still experiments with various ink art methods and techniques, and is indeed known for his mastery in this area, he no longer creates or paints simply for the sake of painting or perfecting techniques. It is precisely his efforts in integrating philosophical concepts into his artworks that have separated him from his peers and elevated him to a place far above other contemporary ink artists.

Another unique characteristic of Qin Feng’s paintings lies in the aural aspects of his work.

In the mid 1990s, his ink on paper artworks expressed highly powerful and dynamic ink and brushstroke movements where heavy-metal sounds were vividly audible (see, for example, the “Between the Tao” series). But such sounds weakened, quieted down, and approached silence in his later and more recent works: “great sound thin voice.” Perhaps this is a sign of his getting the “Tao” himself. The silence, however, is not to be mistaken with stillness. Instead it is a kind of echo where the sound becomes lower, fuller, while all the more transcendental and solemn (see both the “Round Heaven Square Earth” and the “Original Sound” series).

In terms of technique, his work during this period accentuates various “personalities” and unique characteristics of the paper as a medium. In the meantime, he uses other materials such as lotus leaves, fabrics, and copper powder in his paintings, creating variations of sounds, thereby enriching the quality of these sounds. The language of his paintings has thus become purer and more conceptualized, which adds to the depth of his works.

Coming from Northwest China, Qin Feng returns to his homeland after having traveled across the globe. His love remains in the pursuit of “Tao”: “There is a circle of light that surrounds us. All we are is the reflector of that light.”

His thoughts and works are clearly transcending cultural boundaries and local particularities and becoming universal.