Liu Kuo-Sung (Liu Guosong)

signed LIU GUOSONG, dated 1998, and with three seals of the artist
each signed LIU GUOSONG, titled, and dated 1998 on the original titleslip affixed on reverse

Hanart TZ Gallery, Hong Kong

United Kingdom, London, Saatchi Gallery, Ink: The Art of China, 19 June - 5 July, 2012

Kuo, Jason C., Chinese Ink Painting Now, Distributed Art Publishers, New York, USA; Timezone 8, Hong Kong, China, 2010, pp.98-99
Goedhuis, Michael, Ink: The Art of China, Michael Goedhuis Publishing, London, United Kingdom, 2012, p. 106

Overall in very good condition. Each panel was recently restored to remove discoloration on the bare paper surface. Framed size: 194 x 91 cm; 76 3/8 x 35 7/8 in. each
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Universe is My Heart is a series that Liu Guosong created in the mid-1990s, and is the namesake for subsequent solo exhibitions. The name alludes to an essay titled "The Force of the Heart ", written by a young Mao Zedong in 1917, which later symbolised the future revolutionary leader's desire to build a nation empowering its people.

Universe is My Heart No.4 (LOT 518) is a monumental abstract landscape that features the iconic fibre-plucking and ink rubbing painting style established by Liu Kuo-Sung in 1963. Similar to the painting Misty Mountains from Afar that sold in these rooms in October 2014 (Lot 2831), the present lot evokes the ideas of Daoism that have influenced Chinese painters for centuries. Upon seeing the paintings by Liang Kai (1140-1210) at the National Palace Museum in Taipei in the 1960s, Liu was emboldened to build upon the Song dynasty pomo (splash-ink) style of painting—a style, which Liu comments, was not much explored in the Western world until German Expressionism nearly seven hundred years later. Traditional Chinese painting philosophy focused on how best to use the (black) ink to achieve an ideal composition. However, Liu felt that the philosophy does not fully express the duality of black and white, and thus created his own "Liu Kuo-Sung Paper", with coarse cotton fibres that can be physically plucked from the paper to reveal the white line within the ink stroke. He describes the resulting gestural dry brush effect as similar to the flying white (feibai) calligraphic style, which is instrumental in creating the intricate ridges and contours of his abstract landscapes. This calligraphic depiction of peaks and valleys is also evident in the later dated landscape, Red Soil Plateau (LOT 505).