Like Buddhist pilgrims who trek across vast terrain in search of enlightenment, artists Chen Linggang and Liang Weiyuan find meaningful insight through process. Between the Lines: Reading Chen Linggang and Liang Weiyuan presents contemporary works on canvas that express creation and contemplation, transcending legibility to fuel interpretation and introspection. The works contain an innate sense of inquisitive calm, marking traces of the artists’ hands and minds while inspiring viewers to participate in the reading process.

To read between the lines is to infer meanings or understandings that are never explicitly stated. The exhibition Between the Lines exists in this space of ambiguity, opening the works of Chen Linggang and Liang Weiyuan to individual reflections, while offering no clear answers or direction. The works are visually minimal and abstract, offering a depth and complexity in form and texture that one can read, delve into, and become lost in. What is presented on the walls is therefore a representation of their practice, which extends beyond the canvases into the modes of their creation and the myriad of readings they inspire.

each stroke, knot, and action of the artists is as integral to the art as the resulting canvases themselves. Chen Linggang challenges notions of readability and language in his works of compressed paper on canvas, questioning the metaphysics of the written word by deconstructing it into an artistic medium. Through expressive webs of painted lines, Liang Weiyuan explores the dichotomies between man-made order and natural movement, artistic liberty and linguistic structure. both artists incorporate rhythmic repetition and spatial organization in their production methods, which are mirrored in their visual manners.

by paying homage to the past through materiality, rice paper, calligraphy, and references to traditional philosophies, the two draw connections to a sense of time, history, and perspective. They deconstruct language into its parts (thought, surface, medium, stroke, image, and interpretation) to create new readings based on meandering forms and physical materiality rather than established semantics. Between the Lines exists between process and creation, moving fluidly between visual form and visual language to read that which is unwritten.

The relative order and simplicity of Chen Linggang and Liang Weiyuan’s work belie sophisticatedly intricate strands of thought and culture. Writerly abstractions inspire new conceptions and interpretations of art, offering a way to see thought and read history in form. by questioning the process of art – where it begins, where it ends – the exhibition explores the undefined space between using contemporary works on canvas that shape a wandering visual discourse. immersive in logic and detail, Between the Lines: Reading Chen Linggang and Liang Weiyuan is a map. it is an epiphany.

*image (left)
© Chen Linggang
courtesy of the artist and Art+Shanghai Gallery