A painting from Chen Lizhu’s Meditation Space series [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]
Upon walking into Hidden Garden, an ongoing exhibition featuring abstract painters Wan Yang and Chen Lizhu at the White Box Art Center inside Beijing’s 798 art district, viewers may be greeted with a sense of blandness and boredom in front of seemingly empty canvases featuring a minimalistic palette.
However, if they look at the color and brushwork of those paintings a bit longer, with closer observation, they may find the clutter and noise in their minds gradually giving way to peace and calm. That’s when they find the gateway to the hidden garden, a shelter for the mind amid chaos.
Hunan-born painter Wan Yang is known as a “method-first” artist. His toolkit not only includes oils, brushes and spatulas but also computers and 3D printers. In his own words, to finish a piece is like the completion of a building.
For the paintings on display at White Box, he first 3D-printed a unique palette for each of them and then sketched on the canvas a seamless grid of tiny lozenges before transferring color to each of the lozenges. Brushstrokes and colors mingle with those in adjacent lozenges, creating atmospheric compositions that evoke the morning light or nebulae in the night sky.
Making Pictures of Strange Attractors by Wan Yang [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]
Hailing from Fujian province, artist Chen Lizhu launched her abstract artistic career after finishing her studies in the Netherlands in 2007. On view are 10-odd paintings from the Meditation Space series created in the last two years, which is seen by art critics as a continuation of the Space series she first created in 2012.
Through sumptuous layers of colors and brushstrokes, she turns canvases into monochromatic, poetic and soothing spaces that beckon viewers to walk in, sit down and meditate.
Another striking feature of the series is the color contrast between the canvas and its four sides, which are often neglected by painters. The atmospheric rendering of the border between the two color fields in her compositions conjures up the hazy aura of paintings of the Song dynasty (960-1279), remarked Sun Yongzeng, the White Box’s director and the exhibit’s curator.
Hidden Garden runs until September 16.
A painting from Chen Lizhu’s Meditation Space series [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]
A painting from Chen Lizhu’s Meditation Space series [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]
A painting from Chen Lizhu’s Meditation Space series [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]
A painting from Chen Lizhu’s Meditation Space series [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]
A painting from Chen Lizhu’s Meditation Space series [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]
A painting from Chen Lizhu’s Meditation Space series [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]
Purple Noise by Wan Yang [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]
Nebulae by Wan Yang [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]
The Beast in the Cave by Wan Yang [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]
Hidden Garden, a two-person exhibit featuring abstract painters Wan Yang and Chen Lizhu at the White Box Art Center in Beijing's 798 art district, runs until September 16, 2023. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]
Hidden Garden, a two-person exhibit featuring abstract painters Wan Yang and Chen Lizhu at the White Box Art Center in Beijing's 798 art district, runs until September 16, 2023. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]
