In the course of my ongoing exploration into the various creative possibilities in traditional Chinese painting, I regularly observe Nature from a spiritual perspective in the formulation of a landscape that is uniquely my own. Today, in this digital era, modern technology and images have created a new world view and different feel for society. The constant revolving in my mind of the elements of Nature and Time has prompted me to insert a digital element absent in traditional painting; namely geometric lines and broken lines. Through the medium of traditional ink and pen- brush, they interweave and harmonize within the structural space of Chinese traditional landscape painting, to explore an innovative and modern spatial aesthetics.

Years of experience as a sculptor have enhanced my sensitivity, imagination and appreciation of three-dimensional space, as well as the sudden inspiration prompted by the infinite shapes of natural rock formations. The exotic forms, ubiquitous contours, and jumble of cavities in rocks are Nature’s creation. Thus, a mere block of stone is life, the existence of decay. Simple and unadorned, with the creative force of heaven and earth concealed within, theirs is an aestheticism of restraint. Throughout history, the delight of the literati in stones reflects their cultural taste and aesthetic view. Rock contours are in themselves landscape art. When I view them with the eye of modern man, I savor their symbolic form and abstract beauty; and their transparency, cavities, and folds enable me to apprehend a world beyond outward appearances.

My recent works were initiated without a rough sketch, and painted over a period of several years and were completed at different points in time. They are largely marked by the manner in which experience has affected me, together with the expression and amalgamation of my aesthetic sense.    With empty and serene mind I have made a spiritual journey to the wellspring of all phenomena. My discerning pen-brush wanders about in visual space, attempting to transform and expand, questing for rules governing the location of various objects in landscape painting. My mind and the objects have become one, as it leisurely observes and reflects on all things between Heaven and Earth. The many independent objects are blended in harmonious unity, regardless of differences in size and location, be they in the foreground or background. Whether intangible or solid, positive or negative, overlapping, changed places, or crisscross in space, they constitute my own mental spatial construct of all things. They have become the natural unity of all my feelings; a heartfelt response to all that I have observed.

I have dabbled with different brush and ink techniques, along with the accumulated visual idiom of everyday life, to find, between form and abstraction, a means of emphasizing the flowing rhythm and the infectious power of all things.    Within the painting different metaphors fluctuate, as is the case with the emptiness of the universe and the superficial illusions of the world, where they intermingle to create their own unique composition that vibrates with rhythm and harmony.

Leung Kui-ting (English translation by Diane Lu)