Years of studying Chinese culture have led New York artist Ross Lewis to develop a distinct visual language by incorporating aesthetic and philosophical sensibilities of Chinese artistic traditions into his installations, paintings and sculpture. In his recent “Rope Paintings”, the artist departs from his training in the Chinese brush to forge a unique and articulated line using rope and string saturated with ink juxtaposed with collage on paper. 

Qiu Deshu is a Shanghai mixed-media abstract artist born in 1948. He is best known for the role he played in founding the unofficial “Grass” or “Cao Cao” artists’ group in 1979 with the intention to break from the bonds of the institutional system of art prevalent during the Mao era. He did so by emphasizing on individualism, integrity and personal artistic language without being militant. 

Ross Lewis and Qiu Deshu first met when Lewis was curating exhibitions of contemporary Chinese art in New York in the early 80’s. He visited Qiu’s studio in Shanghai at that time to see artworks firsthand and they only recently met up again, rekindling their friendship. Their paintings spring from a deep understanding of traditional ink painting and a desire to find their individual expression and response to that tradition.

*image (left)
courtesy of Front Line Contemporary