Kwai Fung Hin Art Gallery is delighted to present the exhibition "Story of Stone: Solo Exhibition of Ma Desheng" featuring works created by artist Ma Desheng since 2006. The exhibition will be held at 4/F - 5/F, The Pao Galleries, Hong Kong Arts Centre from January 16 - January 31, 2010.

Ma Desheng, the Stars Group and Chinese Contemporary art:

Born in 1952 in Beijing, China, Ma Desheng is one of the founding members of the first group in the history of Chinese contemporary art. He is both an artist and a poet.
 
He caused a great stir in September 1979 when he actively participated in the Stars group. Ma Desheng was the leader of the Stars. Along with 22 artists who strive for artistic freedom and expression, the group was hunted down by the authorities who opposed creative liberty. The courageous stand made by the Stars group led to a new kind of artistic expression which was unavoidably spread to different areas in China.
 
Ma Desheng left China in 1985 and lived in Switzerland for a year. Since 1986, he has resided in Paris, France.

Since 1982, Ma's ink drawings have been exhibited at the Brooklyn Museum in New York, Claudine Planque Gallery in Lusanne and Monique Picard Gallery, then at the Osaka Museum, at the Museum of Oriental Arts in Stockholm and at the Bern Museum. In France, his engravings were displayed at the library of the Pompidou Centre. Since 1985, his paintings have been exhibited at Japan, Switzerland, the UK, Italy, and Hong Kong.

Story of Stone --- The journey of life

Ma Desheng is fond of stone. To Ma, stone is special and eternal; they exist naturally and resist the ongoing changing nature. Stone remains constant and solid. His stone symbolizes human. They express energy, movement and stories. Ma Desheng has an affinity for Taoism and the Taoist idea of nature --- that relationship between nature and human, heaven and earth is harmonious and should be integrated into one. Stone, the very constant and important thing of nature, makes Ma think about our relationship with the universe. It evokes his thoughts on the meaning of life.

Since 2002, Ma has been working on acrylic on canvas. In particular, he made the mountain the main part of his stone series. Enormous erratic blocks with polished colors, the color of the tar or soot, sprinkled with snowy surfaces like the rough sides of the divine mountain. He depicts his stone and mountains as if they are sculptures. The masses are piled up or line up in an illusory imbalance that is brought under control. Ma's random and free forms allow the complex emotions of his "men" form to bounce on the canvas. He gives the canvas a very particular vitality and power, in which we clearly see the pertinent eloquence of the volumes that fit together and bend as if magnetized, suggesting various interpretations depending on the viewer's imaginations. Art historian Lydia Harambourg notes,"There is an anima in these natural mineral forms, open to organic abstraction, as if submitting to a kind of erosion that reduces them to a construction that will never be able to eliminate the allusive configuration that they bear within them. A human dimension in which Ma Desheng explores the similarities to the perceptible aspects of the figure, for an anthropomorphic interpretation that he seeks to integrate into his composition as one of its natural components."

Ma Desheng works with the canvas set on the ground, the paintbrush held vertically. He works with the color to create a deep density that is particularly reflective of light. The variety of one color (gold, white, gray) forms the background color and brings the dimension of space and contrasts with the contours of the rigorous shape of the stones. With his illuminating brush, Ma is able to manifest different situations in human life. Some figures seem frenzied with grief or sorrow; some figures seem to exude a sense of contentment; some figures are simply sitting or standing in their vivid environments, allowing the viewer to guess their relationship and meanings. All these works reflect Ma's own unique history, expressing a confession of his love for life.

The exhibition will feature artist Ma's 22 acrylic on canvas' works and a collection of woodblock paintings that done in late 1980s. A catalogue is published to accompany this exhibition "Story of Stone".