Tina Keng Gallery is pleased to participate in JINGART. For the fair’s 2019 edition, we present the works of four artists: Sophie Chang (b. 1944), Ava Hsueh (b. 1956), Chiang Yomei (b. 1961), and Peng Wei (b. 1974). Through their respective practices in abstract painting and new ink art, the four artists exemplify the diverse styles of Greater Chinese contemporary art nurtured in a globalized context. Coming from Taiwan, London, and Beijing, the roster of female artists is a highlight in a fair that features a higher percentage of male artists. What makes the quartet stand out, however, is their singular approach to art making and individual artistic sensibilities.
Self-taught artist Sophie Chang, who spent years living in New York, began studying painting since 2006, and has been consistently engaged in painting for over a decade. A plethora of styles has been developed over the course of her practice as she delves into the exploration of painting. She shifted her focus to abstraction in the later stage, and cultivated an approach to palette and line that allows her to interweave her insights and feelings with colors and brushstrokes. The resulting work sees Western oil paint blend with her unique Eastern rhythm, and her ink painting embodied through Western techniques. Sophie Chang had made significant records in major auction houses such as Ravenel, Christie’s, and Sotheby’s since fall 2017. Submerged in her artistic realm of meditation, Sophie Chang has conceived a constellation of work molded by acuity and wisdom, slow and steady.
Ava Hsueh is one of the representative artists of abstract painting in Taiwan. She obtained her D.A. degree in Arts from New York University, served as Director of National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, and has been a doctoral advisor of Doctoral Program in Art Creation and Theory, Tainan National University of the Arts. Hsueh has long used abstract language as her means of expression. What lies behind the dimension of imageries are the visible and invisible depths of temporal and spatial fields, achieved through her interweaving of lines and planes that cradle the pigments’ luster and warmth, which comes into form in the viewer’s perception like a strike of light. Through the layered compositions blending the charm of both the East and the West and gradual expansion of aesthetics and consciousness, Hsueh has continued to search for a way to present today's reality through abstract language, and to explore the various possibilities of contemporary abstract art.
Of Chinese, Russian, and German descent, Chiang Yomei was deeply influenced by diverse Chinese and Western cultures from a young age. Departing for the United States for further studies in the late 1970s, she subsequently settled in London. To delve into Chiang Yomei’s practice through Buddhist philosophy, cognitive psychology, and quantum entanglement theory is simultaneously the most straightforward and most arduous way. The artist meditates during her art making process. The resulting work attests to such process where she examines the nuanced relationship between life, perception, and memory, and reflects on the intrinsic nature of being and emptiness, ultimately cultivating the mind.
Seemingly shifting away from ink tradition, Peng Wei focuses her exploration in contemporary aesthetics on ink and further transcends tradition. Rooted in traditional literati painting, her work incorporates daily realizations into elegant and delicate ink paintings, portraying the soft yet persevering spirit of Chinese literati. Her work revolves around the past of art, including the wisdom, memories, sorrows, and sense of reality found in ancient work. With her traditional approach, she departs from convention, yet brings traditional texts and contemporary concepts together on paper. While altering the form of traditional shanshui, she does not intend to transform tradition. Instead, she is in search of an artistic equilibrium between the past and present.
Firmly rooted in Greater Chinese modern art, Tina Keng Gallery’s mission is to unearth artistic classics from the bygones of history, and champions Greater Chinese contemporary art. Sophie Chang’s painting of unrestrained spirituality,juxtaposed with Ava Hsueh’s strength and resilience, while calm and profundity imbues Chiang Yomei’s painting, and elegance and otherworldliness delineates Peng Wei’s. Together their artistic oeuvres, shaped by their life journey and creative language, embody the profound intersection of the East and West.