四合院 Courtyard, Ink on Paper 水墨纸版画, 400 x 530 mm, 1982.
10 Chancery Lane Gallery is proud to present “Ink Paintings 1980 – 2000” by renowned Chinese artist Huang Rui. The solo exhibition will present a series of ink paintings that Huang Rui created from 1980 to 2000.
Huang Rui (b. 1952, Beijing) is one of China’s most highly regarded artists. He is one of the key leaders of The Stars Group (Xing-Xing 星星画会). Established in the late 1970s, The Stars Group initiated some of the first free art expressions in the Post-Mao era bringing together 23 like-minded artists including Wang Keping, Ma Desheng and Ai Wei Wei. They saw themselves as the pinpoints of light in an otherwise endless night, the two Stars exhibitions at last broke the stranglehold of Communist Party orthodoxy and set the stage for the future freedom of artistic expression in China.
In 1984, Huang Rui moved to Japan where he returned to ink painting. Professor Chiba Shigeo noted after seeing his ink works in the 1980s that his works were more engaged with space than the abstract. “Since it was not to depict any thing or story, nor was it abstract, the achievement was in the expression of “space” itself. Rather than to express, it was more to realise, which is more appropriate. Huang Rui’s ink art works combine shades of ink, moves of brushes, blankness on paper, and the relationship of images and background. If observed from the overall picture layout, any place is one integral wide extension.” Professor Chiba Shigeo states in his text for the book Ink Paintings by Huang Rui.
From the choice of using ink and paper, to the composition and balance of leaving blank space, Huang Rui’s ink paintings also act as a three-dimensional giant ink installation to explore and express both physcial and sensual “space” toghether with the audience. The works embody Ying and Yang, existence and non-existence.
Huang Rui’s Ink Paintings 1980-2000 begins while he was still in China during the Stars era and remains an important body of work for over 20 years. These works, never exhibited since they were shown in China and Japan are a new discovery in the vast career of one of China’s most engaged artists.
Huang Rui is a painter, sculptor and a performance artists, as well as the founder of the 798 Art District in Beijing. Huang Rui’s works have been shown extensively in China and internationally, his “Yin and Yang Ink Book” series was recently exhibited at the Guggenheim Museum exhibition “Art and China after 1989: Theater of the World” in New York. His works are collected by The Guggenheim Museum, The Centre Georges Pompidou, The Samsung Museum, The Louisiana Museum, M+ Museum among many others.
