The poet-painter
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Rabbit Forest and Spring Winds Have Awoken, and The Veranda the series on show at the exhibition. Photos: Li Yuting/GT and courtesy of Bloom Gallery |
Faerie-fires
"The solitary figures and lonely spaces in He Duoling's paintings are suffused with poetry," said Fan Di'an, director of the National Art Museum of China. "He is an artist with a poet's mind, and his affection for poetry informs and enriches his paintings. His depictions of individuals are depictions of their environments; human and environment bleed into each other like the eliding of a poet's lines, and the result glimmers with faerie-fires of the spirit."
He Duoling's early works also add luster to the show, especially those painted during the 1980s. The subject of many of these pieces is his ex-wife, the noted poet Zhai Yongming. A drawing on paper Zhai Yongming (1988) shows the beauty of this round-eyed, finely chiseled women. The Snow Goose series (1984) is another important set of paintings from that period. He was inspired by the American novelist Paul Gailco's novel of the same name, and he uses a cinematic method of "contrasting the sound and the picture" to deal with the relationship between painting and literature.
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Shalott the Rabbit on show at He Duoling's solo exhibition. |
Besides being a painter, He is also adept in a number of other artistic fields including poetry, literature, architecture and classic music. He is regarded as a leading representative of the Scar Art movement which flourished in the late 1970s and early 1980s, a term which refers to both the emotional and physical scars artists suffered during the last century. In He's own words, his works "actually signify the poetry behind it." "You can see a scar as a kind of poetry, but it doesn't necessarily embody suffering; rather, it is a thing of beauty," he said.
After its brief visit to the Shanghai Art Museum, Literati, Literati will travel to the National Art Museum of China starting October 28.
Date: Until May 18, 9 am to 4 pm
Venue: Shanghai Art Museum
上海美术馆
Address: 325 Nanjing Road West
南京西路325号
Admission: Free
Call 6327-2829 for details
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