Bian Hong: New Abstraction Calligraphy - Calligraphy and Brushwork

About

This exhibition presents Bian Hong’s contemporary ink paintings and new abstract calligraphy from 1995-2022. Selected new works from her recent decade of creation will be on display, showing the dialogue between contemporary calligraphy, her Zen meditation practice, calligraphy brushworks and personal expression.

“Bian Hong’s work is unique in the tide of contemporary Chinese calligraphy and ink images. … But she is very devoted to the spiritual experience of the motions of brush and ink. The so-called “Cheng Huai Guan Dao” exists in this kind of unique calligraphy and unique space.” – Liu Xiaochun, renowned Chinese art theorist and critic, 2006.

Note: “Cheng Huai Guan Dao” is a concept found in Zongbing Song’s, an artist from the Southern dynasties, philosophic understanding of aesthetics. It is considered the most elevated perspective of aesthetics within traditional Chinese culture. It emphasizes that a quiet and clear mind can understand the Tao and reach a state in which the heart and mind can wander freely.

Opening Reception: March 31st, 5-7PM

Gallery 456
456 Broadway, 3rd Floor
New York, NY 10013
Elevator Accessible

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Born 1971, lives and works in Beijing and New York. Graduated in 1990 from Henan Zhengzhou Art Research Institute with focus on calligraphy and Central Academy of Fine Arts with focus on calligraphy, chop engraving, and ink painting.

Bian Hong (邊紅) is a representative figure of the “New Abstract Calligraphy” movement in China. She is a pioneer of this form of ink painting and has established status in contemporary Chinese ink. Her work reconstructs the hierarchies of painting and calligraphy under China’s convention that calligraphy precedes painting; to her, they can be equivalent and approached with similar principles.

Bian Hong will use calligraphy for painting and vice versa. The calligraphic brushstroke shifts itself in and out of abstract expressionist gestures. The result is painting and calligraphy, but a different creation altogether, pulled from modes of Chinese tradition and Western aesthetics and abstraction.

Chinese American Arts Council’s Gallery 456 Visual Arts Exhibition Series is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.
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