This year the CCC’s XianRui (Fresharp) series features the work of abstract ink painter Zheng Chongbin.  The highly anticipated show is comprised of fifteen new and site-specific large scale pieces, which include both paintings and video projections.

Zheng’s work has been hailed as ‘unprecedented,’ and embodies the essence of traditional Chinese ink painting as well as the physicality of western abstract traditions. His work conveys both movement and serenity, making the experience of them at once timeless and dynamic.

From Curator Abby Chen:
    To say traditional ink painting is Zheng’s home of craft and artistry is no exaggeration. The dislocation from China to the U.S. was a catalyst of his transformation, and the choice he made to go into different genre was an intentional and a conscious one. The willingness and the ability to disengage from the familiarity, and to reconnect back to the root culture after the odyssey, have positioned Zheng as an instrument of cultural translation, which in itself has taken both cultures further to a new present. The presence of ink in these paintings almost resembles the identity of the painter himself and his methodology: in the early works, it has to be loud, direct, and raw; then it mixes, fades, and disappears. It feels to me that he initially needed to forcefully, almost recklessly, dash out in order to rebel and break free, and later subtly, gently, and even secretly pan out, infiltrate, and dominate. What Zheng has managed to achieve from this process is evident and crucial to his artistic development, as well as to the actual practice of what it means to be a Chinese artist in America. White Ink presents a visual overlap, which allows for receiving both forms, without a prior knowledge of one or the other. The energy flow Zheng generates with this exhibition actualizes a process of transformation that denotes Xian Rui’s founding goal: to offer a fresh and sharp perspective that provides new possibilities of thinking about not just Chinese culture, but culture at large, through the lens of an individual artist.