Art+Shanghai Gallery

Art+ Shanghai Gallery proudly announces a group exhibition exploring contemporary Chinese landscapes. The Hanging Garden focuses on the use of traditional techniques and materials to communicate meaning through landscape art.

Beginning in the Tang Dynasty the primary subject matter of painting was a mountain with water (shanshui). The landscapes were mostly sparse because the purpose was not to reproduce what the artist saw but rather to establish the feeling of nature to the viewers. Space was defined with brushstrokes, while different materials and color were later introduced to enhance the emotion of an artists work.

Using calligraphy and ink on paper, Yu Peng pays homage to his ancient masters while exploring contemporary culture in his scroll paintings of modern cityscapes. Using incense to burn small holes into rice paper, Xiang Guohua’s landscapes on paper and acrylic are likened to the creative process of a Buddhist practitioner, whose actions emphasize the journey and practice more than the end or work displayed.

In an era of visual transformation, landscape art is widely innovative and diverse, at times containing subtle social commentary. In his photography, painting and acrylic sculptures, Tony Ng addresses issues of congestion and pollution caused by landfills and construction sites.

The Hanging Garden explores contemporary Chinese landscape art as a means of expressing society via realism, metaphor and abstraction. It is less about the literal representation of scenery and more concentrated on establishing a new vocabulary through techniques, materials and motifs.