On February 1, 2022 we will celebrate Chinese New Year 农历新年 (NongliXinnian), or "Lunar New Year," marked by the figure of the Water Tiger, a symbol of boldness and change. After some research, we realized that it was still quite a year ahead, much more optimistic and joyful than the one of the rat or the buffalo that just followed. On the agenda: energy, harmony and creativity. It's a promise! A Google search leading to another Google search this year of the Water Tiger takes us to the discovery of Chinese customs, from there we glimpse the decoration, the rites, the artifacts, then the immensity and the richness of the History of art of this culture as old as the world. Apart from a few great names, we realize that we do not know the majority of the figures of Chinese contemporary art. Change being the key word of the Year of the Tiger, it is time to learn more about the Middle Kingdom and its artists.
Here are our 10 artistic favourites:
The artist, author of bold, delicate, subversive and erotic work, took his own life in 2017 at the age of 29. He left his nude, fresh and carefree shots to posterity. Particularly influential among Chinese youth, he represented, and still represents, the expression of a desire for freedom in the face of a repressive political power. His artistic work, committed and unique, is both raw and extremely aesthetic.
Unknown during his lifetime, Sanyu fell into oblivion at the end of the 1960s, but for the past twenty years his graphic and minimalist works, still lifes essentially composed of stylized and very bare flowers or of a few symbolic animals, have been resurfacing on the market. Critics and collectors are unanimous when faced with these magnificent saturated colors and a technique that defies any notion of perspective. His talent is sometimes referred to as the "Chinese Matisse", a perfect synthesis between East and West.
Better known to the general public after several magnificent retrospectives in the 2020s, the Franco-Chinese painter Zao Wou-Ki, who arrived in Paris in 1948, has established himself as one of the undisputed masters of light. This subject, which he manages to capture so well and retranscribe through his pigments, has made his success. Zao Wou-Ki was able to find a balance between the controlled freedom of Far Eastern printmaking and the gestural abstraction in vogue at the time.
Superstar of contemporary art, exiled in Portugal, fleeing the repression of the Chinese power, the artist and visual artist Ai Weiwei has just published "1,000 Years of Joys and Sorrows", a moving autobiography. This is an opportunity to delve into the artist's powerful and committed works.
A fan of large formats and broad brushes, Yan Pei Ming uses saturations of black, white and gray, occasionally with red, to create his extraordinary portraits. The classical techniques of the European masters are combined in Yan Pei Ming's paintings with very contemporary subjects and questions.
Ming Lu, a young artist of 28, is already making a name for herself in the contemporary cultural landscape with her delicate blue and white porcelain. Ming Lu uses traditional craft techniques to carve symbols of Chinese culture that can be found in the streets of Chinatown. It's beautiful and refined!
Photographer Yang Yongliang questions our environmental, economic and social problems, anticipating the devastating effects of unbridled urbanization and industrialization on our planet. Inspired by the ancestral culture and the famous Shan Shui, which designates a style of Chinese painting that consists of painting natural sceneries or landscapes, Yang Yongliang practices digital photography like a painter.
A young Chinese painter who has been living in Ireland for several years, Du Jingze has become known for his large monochromatic formats, soft declensions of gray, black and white, on which he innocently paints portraits of the great names and symbols of American pop culture, a country he knows only from afar.
The canvases of this young artist of Chinese origin living in France are now the Bourse de commerce in Paris. Xinyi Cheng owes her international reputation to the sensitive and disturbing portraits she paints of her loved ones. She emphasizes the small gestures of everyday life with kindness and tenderness.
The colors, brushstrokes and handprints of Huang Yuxing (b. 1975, Beijing) remain on her canvases after being continuously superimposed and blended. The meticulous brush strokes and the intensity of the colors that permeate his works are based on the traditional Chinese realist technique known as "Gongbi Zhongcai", which he adapts to a characteristic contemporary style that is constantly evolving.