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Lot Essay
Hong Ling is a modern Chinese artist known for his poetic landscape paintings. He really appreciates the spiritual aesthetic, especially the "blackness", "denseness", "thickness" and "weight" in Huang Bin Hong's traditional Chinese shanshui paintings (Fig. 1). Plum Aroma is a splendid example that demonstrates Hong's unique artistic language, presenting a silver and white world of snow-covered trees in the mountains.
Having been living in seclusion in the Yellow Mountains in China for more than 30 years, Hong Ling has learnt to reflect on the meaning of art, and emulate the inner spirit of nature. He puts emphasis on the expression of spirit through form and technique. In Plum Aroma, Hong utilises the richness of oil paint to enhance the varying depths of perspective, adding dimension to his composition. The cool colour palette while vividly portrays a wintery landscape, also depicts the artist's inner sentiments, bringing forth a sombre and subtle atmosphere.
Colour and texture are essential in Hong's painting; the interwoven structure of oil paint cleverly demonstrates the abstract momentum and realm of ink splash.
Plum Aroma not only presents landscape in an aesthetic manner which is powerful and thought-provoking, encouraging the viewer to ponder over our relationship with Nature. Hong seeks to communicate with the landscape, unifying his inner spirit with the world around him. For Hong, it is the 'wu' (strength) in painting that transforms this visual image into a mind image. It is this inner strength of mind rendered in Hong's works that distinguishes him from other landscape artists and his contemporaries.
Having been living in seclusion in the Yellow Mountains in China for more than 30 years, Hong Ling has learnt to reflect on the meaning of art, and emulate the inner spirit of nature. He puts emphasis on the expression of spirit through form and technique. In Plum Aroma, Hong utilises the richness of oil paint to enhance the varying depths of perspective, adding dimension to his composition. The cool colour palette while vividly portrays a wintery landscape, also depicts the artist's inner sentiments, bringing forth a sombre and subtle atmosphere.
Colour and texture are essential in Hong's painting; the interwoven structure of oil paint cleverly demonstrates the abstract momentum and realm of ink splash.
Plum Aroma not only presents landscape in an aesthetic manner which is powerful and thought-provoking, encouraging the viewer to ponder over our relationship with Nature. Hong seeks to communicate with the landscape, unifying his inner spirit with the world around him. For Hong, it is the 'wu' (strength) in painting that transforms this visual image into a mind image. It is this inner strength of mind rendered in Hong's works that distinguishes him from other landscape artists and his contemporaries.