The Voice of the brush: The Journey of Chinese Calligraphic Art

Description

Classical calligraphy is regarded as the ultimate expression of Chinese culture. From the 1950s, several calligraphers drew inspiration from Western movements including Abstract Expression, to push the boundaries of their own art form.

This activity blossomed in the mid-1980s, and saw calligraphers subverting the relationship between the character’s form and its meaning, allowing the content of the composition to govern the form, as opposed to the form of the characters to dictate the composition.

While the works maintained their calligraphic style, the image became increasingly abstract, and at the extreme, divorced from any specific language except the language of painting.

The first part of the exhibition includes Gu Gan, Huang Yao, Luo Qi, and Wang Dongling – artists who are pioneers in this field who, as a unit, brought a new voice to the art of calligraphy, while paying homage to its place in Chinese heritage and identity.