Wang Jinsong

signed WANG JINSONG, titled, dated 2008, and with one seal of the artist

Kuo, Jason C., Chinese Ink Painting Now, Distributed Art Publishers, New York, USA; Timezone 8, Hong Kong, China, 2010, p.165

Overall in very good condition. Framed size: 114.3 x 86.4 cm; 45 x 34 in.
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Born in Harbin in 1963, Wang Jinsong is a leading contemporary Chinese artist whose artistic explorations over the past three decades include ink painting, oil painting, installation, photography and video art. A graduate from the Chinese painting department at the Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts in Hangzhou, Wang is most familiar with the medium of ink, even though his earliest oil paintings were recognized at the forefront of China’s Cynical Realism and Political Pop art movements. Wang’s works have been exhibited extensively around the world as part of breakout exhibitions of contemporary Chinese art, such as China Avant-Garde: Counter-Currents in Art and Culture (1993), China’s New Art Post 1989 (1993), and Inside Out: New Chinese Art (1998).  

With the same exaggerated humour that he approaches his works in other mediums (filled with meaning-laden symbols and images) Wang actively attempts to liberate ink painting from the burden of its historical legacy. Wang views ink as a medium that can record time and his resulting figures and landscapes are intended to reveal the passage of time. Moreover, Wang views ink is a tool, a symbol of a history and culture (in China particularly), and a unique language. Here in his Landscapes (Lots 550 & 551), Wang directly challenges the rules and forms that underlie Chinese landscape paintings. The seal and signature take a prominent position in the composition and both the distinct horizon line and central perspective are a direct contrast to the guiding principles of traditional painting in China.