Press Release
Chen Haiyan, Carving the Unconscious
Curated by Britta Erickson
The newly established Beijing art gallery Ink Studio is delighted to announce its second exhibition, of prints and paintings in ink on paper by artist Chen Haiyan. Chen Haiyan 陳海燕 (b. 1955) is widely recognized as one of the most important Chinese artists carving woodcuts today. She is also an accomplished ink painter and these two media together have become inextricably linked in her artistic process. Uniting traditional elite aesthetics with a rough vernacular character, she renders her subject matter, dream images from her unconscious, with an unparalleled sense of emotional directness.
In the 1980s Chen Haiyan began keeping dream diaries, a habit that continues to this day. Now she bases all her paintings and prints on material drawn from their pages, with subjects ranging from the everyday to the surreal: van Gogh buying a watch at a flea market; the artist dancing with a giant cat; a huge manmade iceberg in West Lake; chasing birds in an old house.
Chen Haiyan, “Moonlight,” 2013, Ink color on xuan paper, 141 3/4 x 115 in
陈海燕，《月亮》，2013，彩墨、宣纸，360 x 292 cm
Her prints, beginning with a brush and ink painting on a wood block, underscore the link between brushwork and carving (traditionally the carving of seals), as well as the importance of the compositional balance between figure and ground — Chen often switches in a single work between relief and intaglio. She says, “My works entail transforming rice paper into wood with the help of the Chinese brush. I first use an expansive freehand style of painting on the wooden block and later when I am carving I more carefully actualize the picture that is in my heart and give shape to it.” Next to the imagery she writes the dream text drawn from the diary, integrating text and image — a time honored aspect of traditional Chinese painting.
Chen Haiyan, “Drowsy,” 2013, Wood print, 63 3/4 x 40 1/8 in
陈海燕，《朦胧》，2013，木版画，162 x 102 cm
In painting, Chen Haiyan applies her mastery of the brushwork and spatial composition required to work on an oversize scale — gained from her experience creating ever-larger woodcuts — to produce monumental paintings. Like many of China’s greatest modern calligrapher-seal-carver-painters such as Zhao Zhiqian (1823-1884), Wu Changshi (1844-1927) and Qi Baishi (1863-1957), she balances her powerful and carved brushwork with intense, saturated colors. Whereas her carving-painting predecessors applied their da xieyi or “bold, calligraphically-expressive” painting style within traditional painting formats, however, Chen creates images on a monumental scale suited to the space requirements of contemporary art.
Chen is currently a senior professor in the Print Department of the National Academy of Fine Arts (formerly the Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts) in Hangzhou. This is the first time that her monumental ink paintings and her woodcut prints have been exhibited together.
