Tokyo Gallery＋BTAP are pleased to announce the opening of artist,Ye Jianqing’s solo Exhibition Ye Jianqing-Qi,Through Painting on August 29,2015.This exhibition will last till to Semptember 18.

In last year’s “Neo-obscurantist” exhibition, Ye Jianqing reinterpreted the literati sentiments of Yuan-dynasty painter Huang Gongwang by way of a 26 meter long “Scroll Depicting the Fuchun Mountain Dwelling”. For Ye Jianqing, painting isn’t merely a language used to represent the realm of biology and nature. More so, he considers it a method through which to better comprehend and approach the self. This is in accordance with the fundaments of traditional Chinese thought, i.e. the search for a space and a context that can exceed the mundane.
What is revealed to us by these new works of Ye Jianqing isn’t merely a detached and lofty experience of space. More so, it’s a co-existence between time and the “ego”. The subtle notes in the work appropriately reveal Ye Jianqing’s technical mastery of painting. It most certainly incites the spectator to form a new understanding and reception of contemporary Chinese art.

观月－1，200x150cm

Ye Jianqing’s paintings once again manage to paint Qi (“breath” or “life force”; 气), that natural, nimble vital energy within, that ineffable aura of atmosphere, that subtly mutable breath of life on the tips of the brush, that inframince “spirit resonance” (qiyun 气韵).

These works by Ye Jianqing will enable us to reflect on how, in the age of technology, to face nature and scenery. In what do the differences in the modes of viewing landscape paintings and natural scenes lie? How to express “temporality” in painting? How to reconstitute landscapes with our modern temperament? How should contemporary painting respond to classical, traditional landscapes? How to transform that classic voyage of observation with photographic perspectives? And what of the contemporary significance of nature? How should contemporary painting reconnect nature and art? How to make possible the mutual painting of landscapes [shanshui 山水] and scenery [fengjing 风景]? How to maintain that tension between the faint void of vision and the sturdiness of objects within the scenery?

清风朦胧，300x540cm

We must thank Ye Jianqing, this painter of the vital breath, this craftsman who allows the canvas to draw deeply in the numinous breath of nature, again making the mood-realm [yijing 意境] of faint emptiness and unaffected grace—long forgotten—appear in front of us. We can merely do as he does, and breathe deeply in front of the works.

The exhibition’s opening will be held on August 29 ,2015 at 3pm.Tokyo Gallery+BTAP cordially invite you to attend.