Peng Kanglong: A Modern Master’s Continuous Exploration of Ink

Description

Throughout the history of Chinese brush-and-ink painting, landscape and flower painting have been two distinct genres, each with its own metaphoric language, techniques, representative masters and developmental history.

One such artist is Peng Kanglong, a leading contemporary ink master renowned for synthesising these traditions in his latest solo exhibition, Losing My Way to Watch the Flowers Bloom. The show features nearly 40 works spanning key stages of his career, including pieces from his 2025 museum exhibitions at the Guangdong Museum of Art and The Historical Grand Courtyard in Taipei. The exhibition will be presented in two rotations: the first from 19 September to 21 October, and the second from 22 October to 28 November.

Highlights range from the eleven-metre handscroll “Roaming No. 3” and foil screen “Silver Thunderbolt,” to signature flower-landscape hybrids such as “Rejuvenation” and “Night Flowers at Dawn.” Rather than beginning with a fixed image, Peng allows each painting to unfold through the movement of brush and ink, turning landscape and flowers into pathways for exploring the medium’s possibilities.

Having graduated from Taipei National University of the Arts in 1988, where he specialised in Chinese brush-and-ink landscape painting, Peng has developed a distinctive practice informed by the late-Ming and early-Qing masters Shitao (1642–1707) and Kuncan (circa 1612–1673), as well as the layered landscapes of modern painter Huang Binhong (1865–1955). Since turning to flower painting in 2013, Peng has brought landscape painting’s textured brushwork and spatial depth to a new visual language.