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Lot Essay
From the earliest stage of his career, Walasse Ting's paintings have captivated viewers with electric colors and light-hearted mood. A painter, lithographer and poet, Ting's artistic trajectory began with his creative integration of Eastern and Western aesthetics. Born in Shanghai in 1929, Ting studied at the Shanghai Art Academy before he left China in 1946. He lived briefly in Hong Kong before sailing to France in 1950 where he befriended members of the avant-garde CoBrA Group, most notably Pierre Alechinsky and Asger Jorn. In 1959, he moved to New York and participated in the Pop Art and Abstract Expressionism movement where his closest associates were artists Sam Francis and Joan Mitchell, members of the second generation of Abstract Expressionist painters. In the mid-twentieth century when Greenwich Village was the creative hub of the New York School, the close proximity and frequent exchange between artists opened up dialogues between the artists and resulted in much creative synergy. Influences of American Action Painting, Art Informel, and the CoBrA Group can be seen in his work. After 15 years of abstract painting, Ting's interest in the body and his exploration of sexuality led him back to figuration in the 1970's. Reevaluating the notion of the female body, Ting's work became even more subjective, personal, and radical in his expression of emotion through the vehicle of figurative imagery.
Ting responded to the idea of sexual desire through his art, as he transferred his inner emotions to the fluent and expressive brushstrokes in his capture of alluring beauties against the riot of vibrant acrylic colors that break free into a dreamscape of sensual pleasure. In Kiss Me, Kiss Me (Lot 194), the title of the work and the bare-breasted subject evoke the immediacy and emotions of sexual passion. Illustrated by flat planes of colour and simplified lines, the woman reveals herself to the viewer, and is sprayed in a whirlpool of impassioned drips. It is as if the figure has been subsumed into an abstract expressionist canvas. In Come to Talk to Us (Lot 195) two half-length female figures cast their gaze on a plant-like bouquet of colours at the centre of the image, dividing the image in two. The mirror-image like effect creates a sense of calm and balance, and the dabs of green, blue, and red paint trickle slowly along the canvas, exuding a melancholic beauty like that of gazing through a window on a rainy day. The title, "Come to Talk to Us," resounds with a lonely yet tantalizing longing. Ting's use of figuration stemmed from a compulsion to express the feelings inspired in him by objects of beauty. He said: "When I see a beautiful woman [and] I see flowers, its beauty makes me feel intangible, melancholy, love, refreshed, different, and reborn. I want to use different colours to express my inner feelings and emotions in my paintings." Indeed, Ting makes tangible the multitude of visceral emotions he sought to express, captivating the viewer with his unique style and visual impact.
In Eat Me, I'm a Fish (Lot 197), the paint splatters that once dominated entire canvases of Ting's earlier work has now been reduced to a faint effervescence. The gestural mark is subjugated to a now magnified exploration of form, and the previously provocative odalisque has become a plane of colour flattened against the surface of the canvas. Its oblong form suggests the shape of a fish as the title unabashedly invites the viewer to come and consume its imagery, evoking consumer culture's sexual drive as much as its celebration of the empowered libido. With single, deliberate lines articulating the curves of the figure's legs and chest and face, Ting displays the economy of line and form he had achieved in his personalized language of expression. The figure cuts across the diagonal of the picture plane while a cyan blue rectangle slices off the upper right quadrant of the image, opening up the image like a window. Yet this window seems to open up to a geometric slab that contains the dripping dabs of colour, like one of his abstract expressionist canvases (fig. 1). As such, this work stands in dialogue with Tom Wesselman's Sunset Nude with Mondrian (fig. 2), which depicts a Mondrian painting at the upper left corner of the image. In 1974 Wesselman wrote, "When I saw Walasse's nudesK It was all like when I got my first colour TV and the colours transformed everything and it was new and exciting." (Tom Wesselman, 3/74, Longmen Art Project, Walasse Ting: Red Mouth Series 2, Shanghai, China, 2012 p.70) Not unlike Ting, Wesselman's work evoked the empowered libido and explored the merging of abstraction and figuration via the art historical tradition of the odalisque. With his controlled use of colour and line in Eat Me, I'm a Fish, the forms are aligned along the diagonal of the picture plane, creating a striking and succinct visual effect. The relative austerity of this image is a rare and moving occurrence in his acrylic figurative works.
His paintings on rice paper are delicate and ornate, rendered with detail and repetitive patterns. Subsuming figural imagery into his personal language of expression, Ting frequently depicted cats, flowers and birds in his paintings. In Peacock (Lot 249), the 'eyes' of the bird's plumage radiate outwards across the large surface of the painting, creating a striking wallpaper of electric blue, yellow and green. The controlled circles, tightly arranged, create an arresting optical vibration. In a charming and dreamlike composition, Woman with Flowers (Lot 248) depicts an uncanny yellow-green figure peering through a mound of flowers at a small neon cat, barely distinguishable through the verdure of the various types of flora. In a poem about Ting, Pierre Alechinsky wrote, "He loves splashes of color for they are flowers in reality. He paints, fluidly, and then nothing exists but the flower which are, in reality, splashesK. Matisse = I only believe while painting. Ting = painting is now. Never before, never after." (Pierre Alechinskey, Through Ting's Eyes, Longmen Art Project, Walasse Ting: Red Mouth Series 2, Shanghai, China, 2012, p.61) Spontaneous, exuberant and striking, Ting's painted like each day could be his last, captivating the viewer with his unique style and bold expressions from the heart.
Ting responded to the idea of sexual desire through his art, as he transferred his inner emotions to the fluent and expressive brushstrokes in his capture of alluring beauties against the riot of vibrant acrylic colors that break free into a dreamscape of sensual pleasure. In Kiss Me, Kiss Me (Lot 194), the title of the work and the bare-breasted subject evoke the immediacy and emotions of sexual passion. Illustrated by flat planes of colour and simplified lines, the woman reveals herself to the viewer, and is sprayed in a whirlpool of impassioned drips. It is as if the figure has been subsumed into an abstract expressionist canvas. In Come to Talk to Us (Lot 195) two half-length female figures cast their gaze on a plant-like bouquet of colours at the centre of the image, dividing the image in two. The mirror-image like effect creates a sense of calm and balance, and the dabs of green, blue, and red paint trickle slowly along the canvas, exuding a melancholic beauty like that of gazing through a window on a rainy day. The title, "Come to Talk to Us," resounds with a lonely yet tantalizing longing. Ting's use of figuration stemmed from a compulsion to express the feelings inspired in him by objects of beauty. He said: "When I see a beautiful woman [and] I see flowers, its beauty makes me feel intangible, melancholy, love, refreshed, different, and reborn. I want to use different colours to express my inner feelings and emotions in my paintings." Indeed, Ting makes tangible the multitude of visceral emotions he sought to express, captivating the viewer with his unique style and visual impact.
In Eat Me, I'm a Fish (Lot 197), the paint splatters that once dominated entire canvases of Ting's earlier work has now been reduced to a faint effervescence. The gestural mark is subjugated to a now magnified exploration of form, and the previously provocative odalisque has become a plane of colour flattened against the surface of the canvas. Its oblong form suggests the shape of a fish as the title unabashedly invites the viewer to come and consume its imagery, evoking consumer culture's sexual drive as much as its celebration of the empowered libido. With single, deliberate lines articulating the curves of the figure's legs and chest and face, Ting displays the economy of line and form he had achieved in his personalized language of expression. The figure cuts across the diagonal of the picture plane while a cyan blue rectangle slices off the upper right quadrant of the image, opening up the image like a window. Yet this window seems to open up to a geometric slab that contains the dripping dabs of colour, like one of his abstract expressionist canvases (fig. 1). As such, this work stands in dialogue with Tom Wesselman's Sunset Nude with Mondrian (fig. 2), which depicts a Mondrian painting at the upper left corner of the image. In 1974 Wesselman wrote, "When I saw Walasse's nudesK It was all like when I got my first colour TV and the colours transformed everything and it was new and exciting." (Tom Wesselman, 3/74, Longmen Art Project, Walasse Ting: Red Mouth Series 2, Shanghai, China, 2012 p.70) Not unlike Ting, Wesselman's work evoked the empowered libido and explored the merging of abstraction and figuration via the art historical tradition of the odalisque. With his controlled use of colour and line in Eat Me, I'm a Fish, the forms are aligned along the diagonal of the picture plane, creating a striking and succinct visual effect. The relative austerity of this image is a rare and moving occurrence in his acrylic figurative works.
His paintings on rice paper are delicate and ornate, rendered with detail and repetitive patterns. Subsuming figural imagery into his personal language of expression, Ting frequently depicted cats, flowers and birds in his paintings. In Peacock (Lot 249), the 'eyes' of the bird's plumage radiate outwards across the large surface of the painting, creating a striking wallpaper of electric blue, yellow and green. The controlled circles, tightly arranged, create an arresting optical vibration. In a charming and dreamlike composition, Woman with Flowers (Lot 248) depicts an uncanny yellow-green figure peering through a mound of flowers at a small neon cat, barely distinguishable through the verdure of the various types of flora. In a poem about Ting, Pierre Alechinsky wrote, "He loves splashes of color for they are flowers in reality. He paints, fluidly, and then nothing exists but the flower which are, in reality, splashesK. Matisse = I only believe while painting. Ting = painting is now. Never before, never after." (Pierre Alechinskey, Through Ting's Eyes, Longmen Art Project, Walasse Ting: Red Mouth Series 2, Shanghai, China, 2012, p.61) Spontaneous, exuberant and striking, Ting's painted like each day could be his last, captivating the viewer with his unique style and bold expressions from the heart.