On November 2, 2017, Sitting in Oblivion - Exhibition of Works of Huang Guowu and Duan Yuanwen opens at Guangdong Museum of Art. A total of more than 200 works, including Huang Guowu's ink painting sand Duan Yuanwen's oil paintings, is exhibited in this exhibition. This is a relatively complete presentation of the two artists' state of creation in recent years.

 

The opening ceremony was attended by Wang Yong, vice chairman of Guangdong Academy of Art, Pi Daojian, professor and criticist of South China Normal University, Li Shuguang, director of Guangdong International Cultural Exchange Center, Wang Shaoqiang, vice chairman of Guangdong Artists Association and director of Guangdong Museum of Art, Hou Fangyun, party secretary of Guangzhou Institute of Art, Ye Xianmin, member of the Presidium of Guangdong Artists Association and deputy director of Guangdong Institute of Art, Zheng Apai, deputy director of Guangzhou Institute of Art, Zuo Zhengyao, curator of the Art Museum of the University City of Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts, Provincial Bureau of the Association of American Bureau, Ye Xianmin, vice dean of Guangdong Art Academy, Zheng Apai, vice president of Guangzhou Art Academy, Zuo Zhengyao, curator of Guangzhou University of Fine Arts, Hu Bin, deputy curator of the Art Museum of Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts, Li Jiangfeng, oil painter of Beijing Institute of Art, and Wang Ai, director of the Lingnan School Research Center of the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts.

 

Both Huang Guowu, an ink painter, and Duan Yuanwen, an oil painter, are accomplished artists in professional painting and have expanded their language expressiveness in their field with their own practice. This exhibition is entitled "Sitting in Oblivion", which comes from Zhuangzi: "I have freed myself from my body. I have discarded my reasoning powers. And by thus getting rid of my body and mind, I have become One with the Infinite." Both artists showed good academic quality and solid skills in their early works. In recent years, however, the two artists have increasingly returned to the trend of drawing ontology.

 

Wang Ai, an invited guest criticist of the exhibition, said that Huang Guowu's practice undoubtedly has quite a symbolic significance for the development of Chinese ink painting art in the past three decades. The "Clouds and the Moon" series of this exhibition is a brand new attempt by which he repeatedly narrates themes and attempts to re-display the possibility of language expression in Chinese ink. He reduced all the concrete factors to a very streamlined level, using only a leafless boat hidden in the waves and clouds as a mirage-like pavilions to connect the topics of classical poetry. His best-mannered character has subsided to one or two tiny backs that occasionally appear, and even some of his works are deserted. And Duan Yuanwen referred to his works in recent years as "nothingness", clearly expressing that his sketching is not the reconstruction of the objective world through canvas language, but more of the content of his inner view. From a cold-hearted perspective, he watched how the traditional garden replaced the perspective of space in the perspective of Western painting with the implication and layers of the pursuit of oriental art.

 

Wang Shaoqiang introduced that this exhibition specially selected Huang Guowu's Chinese ink paintings and Duan Yuanwen's oil paintings to display together. Their creations are agile but both have the unique tension of life. In Huang Guowu's "Clouds and the Moon" series of Chinese ink paintings, the ink-and-water thought is more direct in the context of the combination of vision and perception, expressing a living space to the deep spiritual space between ink and brush, ink and ink and extending the unlimited volume. And Duan Yuanwen's oil paintings such as "The Other Side" and "Hometown" unfold another kind of self-respecting clear mind. Sober and strong colors seem to run in the picture, the changing lines and blocks touch the viewer's attention, the overall image of the picture will spread directly to a very energetic space, this abstract field is different from the extreme and violent aspects of the general expressionism and is a quite characteristic of the performance of Chinese traditional aesthetics.

 

This exhibition will be on display until November 9.

 

Opening Ceremony

 

Address of Wang Shaoqiang, Vice Chairman of Guangdong Artists Association, Director of Guangdong Museum of Art, and Chief Curator of the Exhibition

 

Address of Wang Yong, Vice Chairman of Guangdong Artists Association

 

Address of Pi Daojian, Professor and Criticist of South China Normal University

 

Speech of Artist Huang Guowu

 

Speech of Artist Duan Yuanwen

 

Exhibition Site

 

Exhibition Site

 

Exhibition Site

 

 

Edit & Picture / Danni