Chinese Landscape paintings tend to create artistic ambiences beyond the natural scenery on which they are based. Yearning for isolation and an ideology towards earthliness co-exist peacefully in the world created by the artist. Nature, in reality, can never be as good as in these paintings. For the artist, painting is a quest to find another identity within his or her inner nature. I believe that we should pay careful attention and respectfully treat both contemporary and traditional art. Having said that, my creative direction leans towards avant-garde landscape paintings, separate from the traditional Chinese Landscape paintings.
Why is my pseudonym "Heshang"? I often imagine myself as a leaf floating on a river, drifting with the current, going with the flow.
Heshang - Gao Huijun, December 2011
Inner Nature - 2011 Exhibition of Paintings by Heshang - Gao Huijun, will debut in early December at Longmen Art Projects. This comprehensive exhibition will bring together colored acrylic on canvas works by Heshang – Gao Huijun; featuring over 20 works executed from 2005 to 2011, from both the Chinese Landscape and Birds Series.
Heshang – Gao Huijun was born in 1966, and graduated from the Central Academy of Fine Arts in 1992. In 1994 he established an artist’s studio in Song Zhuang, Beijing. His works, in both execution and temperament, have always been in pursuit of a contemporary interpretation of the atmosphere and symphany of movements within ancient Chinese landscape paintings. At the same time, he often likes to insert symbolic, tailess birds in his landscape paintings as a narrative subject, commenting on the current cultural state of today’s generation. Heshang - Gao Huijun’s creations, exist both as departing from the world and entering the world. This paradox constitutes a special and unique quality in his works, marking him as a unique Chinese scholar of visual and cultural tension.
Inspired by Taoism, Heshang - Gao Huijun’s view of the narrative landscape compared to other topics is likely to transcend the world of art forms. His use of Western materials when depicting ancient Chinese landscapes charm the hearts of his audience. The choice of materials is destructive, but rather reconstructive. His use of acrylic paint instead of the traditional Chinese ink and wash creates a greater sense of air, rain, and snowscapes, in order to present a new face of Chinese landscape paintings.
Heshang - Gao Huijun’s landscapes are rooted in traditional mood and sentiments. He was always a pioneer in challenging and expanding his own state of mind, to filter the contents of the upcoming picture, pursue with his heart and mind the perfect balance within his compositions. With a dedication to classicism, he insistently retains the essence and philosophies of the classical Chinese scholar, and evolves steadily into a new realm of unrestrained form and style to create a close relationship with contemporary life and art. Heshang - Gao Huijun, to some extent, urges us to re-examine the literati tradition as a unique feature of Chinese culture and artistic temperament. He instills the spirit of this natural sense of urgency, sense of home and country, and detached attitude towards the arts, into his Inner Nature; sheltered from the secular society who uses art to satisfy their own needs and desires.
Within his creations, a tail-less bird often appears in his landscapes, forming a symbolic icon. Tail feathers are not only beautiful in appearance, but are also necessary for controlling direction during flight. Losing their ability to control their direction, the bird is at the mercy of external forces, and must stand awkwardly, embarassingly still. This is symbol of the series, similar to the use of symbols by the classical masters where lotuses symbolize purity, cherry blossoms symbolize pride, bamboos symbolize modesty, and so forth, and it aims to reflect the directionless state of modern Chinese society, caught in a world that is neither east, west, north, nor south. Through the paintings derived from his Inner Nature, Heshang - Gao Huijun expresses his personal view and commentary of so-called traditional Chinese "ink & wash scholar", reminding the viewer to absorb and cope with foreign culture, to a certain extent, with a cautious eye and careful awareness.
Inner Nature - 2011 Exhibition of Paintings by Heshang - Gao Huijun will debut in early winter of 2011. Please join Longmen Art Projects in our quest to find calmness our lives and search for our own “Inner Nature”.
