From 4 to 25 September, Christie’s will stage a private selling exhibition of Chinese contemporary
ink paintings at their Hong Kong headquarters. Featuring over 40 works by Xue Liang and Jiang Hongwei, “Silent
Songs” explores the rich history of ink and brush painting through the lens of two of its foremost contemporary
practitioners.
The two artists emerge through similar trajectories: both were born in the second half of the 1950s in the eastern coastal province of Jiangsu, graduated from the Nanjing University of the Arts several years apart, and continue to live and work in Nanjing to this day. They refine the tradition known as the fine brush (gongbi), where meticulous brushwork and precise realism are prized, to convey a sense of tranquility that appeals to the contemporary viewer.
The two artists emerge through similar trajectories: both were born in the second half of the 1950s in the eastern coastal province of Jiangsu, graduated from the Nanjing University of the Arts several years apart, and continue to live and work in Nanjing to this day. They refine the tradition known as the fine brush (gongbi), where meticulous brushwork and precise realism are prized, to convey a sense of tranquility that appeals to the contemporary viewer.
Xue Liang’s surreal, phantasmagorical landscapes are created
using a familiar visual vocabulary—rivers, trees and
mountains—that populate the traditional Chinese landscape
paintings. These archetypal forms are abstracted and purified
to build a landscape of the mind. Graduating from the Nanjing
University of the Arts in 1982, Xue has worked at the Jiangsu
Chinese Paintings Institute since 1997 and serves as the
director of the Fu Baoshi Memorial Museum.
Inspired by Song Dynasty paintings, Jiang Hongwei celebrates
the tranquility of nature by depicting flowers and birds with
supreme elegance, while imbuing his paintings with a greyish
tone to symbolise the passage of time. The artist applies layers
of ink to paper, allows it to dry, and repeats the process to
accumulate layers of colour. He entered the Nanjing University
of the Arts in 1974, and continued to work and lecture at the
University following his graduation in 1977. He currently
serves as a researcher at the China Art Research Institute.
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