Picture This Gallery is proud to present Chinese Whispers, an exhibition of new watercolour paintings and ink drawings of China by David Paskett, PRWS. The exhibition will open on Tuesday 2nd November and run until Saturday 13th November 2010 at Picture This Gallery in Central, Hong Kong.

David Paskett is one of Britain’s leading watercolourists and in March 2009 in recognition of this he was elected to be President of the Royal Watercolour Society (RWS). The RWS is one of the most important art societies and the oldest watercolour society in the world. In his role as P.R.W.S., David has been spending much of his time in China, judging and lecturing at watercolour competitions. He is also advising on The Flow of the Cities, the Beijing/London Watercolour Exchange 2011 in the role of British ambassador for watercolour painting. David officiated at the formal launch of this project in the Beijing Exhibition Centre in early October.

These recent visits to China and advisory roles have allowed David to meet and spend more time with established Chinese watercolour painters. A combination of his advisory and ambassadorial commitments, time spent in China and inspiration through contact with the Chinese painters has provided David more opportunity to draw spontaneously on location, and explore different media, particularly Chinese papers and inks. He sees this as “giving vent to a more liberated way of pen, ink and brush”.

To take David’s words on this:
'My interest in the Chinese tradition of ‘the spirited line” combined with the Western tradition of observed drawing is taking me in a direction that is releasing new energy while building on a lifetime’s hard graft. I am interested in the power of expression that can come through a simple instant drawing. My paintings are based on blocks and patches locked together in solid compositions either using photographs or spending days and weeks in front of a subject. But my drawings capture something instant that passes in the blink of an eye, as I hope to grab a moment of warmth or personality. My drawings of groups of people in a Chinese park playing music, gathered round a game of cards or chequers, or painting calligraphy in water on the pavement are the evidence of my being there and being part of the scene. I enjoy the process and would like to communicate that feeling of ‘being there’ and capturing a moment through the drawing.'

The highlights of this exhibition include The Long Card Game, a 2.1 metre long Chinese scroll ink drawing depicting a scene of card players outdoors in Beijing and Music Wall, a more traditional Paskett watercolour of an Erhu player in front of a stone wall, which has been aged by the weather and the constant passage of bicycles and trishaws digging grooves and detaching the render.

Again in the artist’s words:
'My drawings of groups of people in a Chinese park playing music, gathered round a game of cards or chequers, and painting calligraphy in water on the pavement are the evidence of my being there and being part of the scene. I enjoy the process and would like to communicate that feeling of ‘being there’ capturing a moment through my drawing. The walls I see in China often form a backdrop to my paintings or become a feature inspiring more abstract work.'

David Paskett has been travelling and observing China and its people with his keen and empathetic eye since the late 1980s. This was as China began re-opening its doors to progress and development. His works are a combination of visual documentary and artistic mastery of a wide range of Chinese scenes and subjects – street life, markets, tea houses, canals and waterways and much beside has come under the careful eye and attentive brush of David Paskett. Inevitably many of his subjects have quietly disappeared in the name of progress and development since he first recorded them in his paintings. David Paskett’s works provide a rich artistic record of the changing social landscape of China - no other painter, Western or Chinese, has produced a comparable body of work of contemporary China.

David Paskett is held in very high regard by his fellow artists in China, and has been described by leading watercolourist and Chairman of the Watercolour Committee of the Chinese Artists’ Association, Huang Tieshan, as “an inspiration to contemporary watercolour painters in China”.

Opening reception: Tuesday 2nd November, 2010. 6pm to 9pm