Almost ten years ago, October 2013 was an intense and magical month when I seemed to have been everywhere and meeting everyone, as travel was easy then in Hong Kong, Taipei, and Beijing. Mid-October was especially auspicious. I was wandering around the Da-an District of Taipei with my colleague Nicolas Chow when he said he knew a fabulous small restaurant known for its local ‘little dishes,’ but more importantly, it was close to a small gallery featuring a remarkable artist he knew.
We had a superb lunch and then went in search of this artist. I had a feeling when I met Peng Kanglong that I was fated to meet this kindred brother in art. We sat in his two-tatami mat front room surrounded by the accoutrements of fine tea as if receiving very dear old friends. He spoke about his art with the intensity and fervor of what I imagined a literati might sound like. As he turned on his computer, I was instantly mesmerized. The things I love most—flowers and trees—were captured in misty landscapes of sepia and russet with exquisite vines and flowers shooting from rocks in the foreground. Every panel was different: fields of wild grasses in autumn shades, luxuriant peonies in famille-rose palette, bold rockwork tinged in blue, and jagged peaks of distant mountains glimpsed behind fireworks of red and orange blossoms. It was an intense feeling of joy at seeing such beauty, plus a strange dizziness upon being served such a concentration of brilliance and originality, even though all I had was tea. I was determined then that I personally had to collect his works and share the joy of his creativity.
From that day on, I have never lost that admiration for his ability to capture mystical landscapes, from heartbreakingly intimate studies to encounters with magic mountains. From 2014 onwards, Peng Kanglong’s landscapes were offered at Sotheby’s in Hong Kong and New York. In 2018, Sotheby’s S|2 Gallery in Hong Kong presented Peng’s solo exhibition “Flowers of Evil” with great success, where even the catalog became a collector’s item! Most recently, we exhibited Peng’s new works at Asia Week in New York in March 2023. The New York Times featured Peng’s astonishingly beautiful Jade Inlaid Vermillion Sky as the lead image in its arts report, which drew curators, scholars, and collectors from across North America to experience Peng’s extraordinary flower landscapes for the first time.
On the occasion of his solo debut exhibition “Grand Synthesis: The Extraordinary Flower-Landscapes of Peng Kanglong” at our exhibition space in Caochangdi, Beijing, I am thrilled to congratulate my old friend and kindred brother in art!
