Li Huasheng at ART TAIPEI 2023

ART ASSETS X ESG - MASTERING INK

Date: 2023, 10.20-23

Venue: Taipei World Trade Center Exhibition Hall 1

"ART TAIPEI" is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year. The Taiwan Art Gallery Association organizes this year's event with the Taipei Art Economy Research Centre (TAERC). A special section titled "ART ASSETS x ESG" has been set up at the fair. The curatorial team "bísút" has been invited to organize the exhibition "Mastering Ink," featuring the ink works of six artists: Shiy De-Jinn, Li Yuan-Chia, Yeh Shih-Chiang, Lee Chung-Chung, Li Huasheng, and Yuan Hui-Li. Early in their lives, Shiy De-Jinn, Li Yuan-Chia, Yeh Shih-Chiang, and Lee Chung-Chung all crossed the seas from China to Taiwan, yet their characters and life paths diverged significantly. Shiy De-Jinn is a prominent figure in the art world, while Yeh Shih-Chiang has chosen a secluded lifestyle for many years. Li Yuan-Chia ventured to Europe to broaden his horizons, and Lee Chung-Chung has made Taiwan her long-term home. Li Huasheng has never resided in Taiwan, whereas Yuan Hui-Li was born and raised on this island. Through the life journeys of these six artists and their connections with Taiwan, this exhibition aims to sketch the cultural visage of Taiwan from the perspective of contemporary ink art history.

Like Shiy De-Jinn, Li Huasheng was born in Sichuan but never settled in Taiwan. During the latter half of his life, he chose a reclusive lifestyle similar to Yeh Shih-Chiang. Li Huasheng never ceased creating ink paintings throughout his life. He was once hailed as a new literati painter. Still, after participating in an exhibition in the United States and coming into contact with contemporary art in 1987, he refused to paint traditionally. He created his famous "line grid" paintings at the turn of the century. This exhibition features LI Huasheng's early landscape paintings and later abstract works. His early landscape paintings often employed a wet brush and light ink to smudge and create a hazy, atmospheric effect in the center of the canvas. The brushstrokes are dragged and turned into mountains, and the trees, stones, and tile houses in the corners of the canvas are outlined in light ink that is moist but not blurred. In contrast, the later "line grid" paintings seem to encompass all subjects. Li Huasheng used only a steady fine brush to slowly and regularly hand-draw a crisscross grid pattern on the canvas, capturing the essence beyond the object in the process of depiction.