exhibition view

15:00, 21 April, 2012, the solo of Shao Yan, a contemporary artist, was opened on the 2F, Hall 1, Today Art Museum. Shao Yan has brought his painting experiments on water & ink from 2011 to this 2012 new creation show. Inspired by the enormous exhibiting area (450m2×12.5m) in Today Art Museum, he also created a visually astonishing work of “ink shooting”, giving the audiences a chance to get fresh visual & sensory experience on Chinese ink painting. The contemporary conception for Chinese ink art creation can be re-pondered too.

Liu Xiaochun


Zhang Baoquan


Zhang Zikang

Shao Yan Created a New & Giant Cursive Script by “Ink Shooting” Starting from Chinese Characters

To Chinese as well as the whole oriental world, Chinese character is of irreplaceable importance. The birth of Chinese character symbols the beginning of ancient Chinese civilization, namely the beginning of 5,000 years of Chinese civilization. Chinese calligraphy boasts the earliest lettering designed by human being. It is also one of the few forms of artistic characters in the world. Shao Yan developed his affection to painting & calligraphy from very young. He was born in a literary family in 1962. Shao Bingshan, his father, commanded excellent Yan Zhenqing calligraphic style. Shao Bingyan, his uncle, was an outstanding line portrait drawer in traditional ink & brush style. Brought in such a family of scholars, Shao Yan learnt to write regular script of Yan Zhenqing & Liu Gongquan styles with his father. He also imitated the line portrait drawings of his uncle. He scrawled everywhere, dismantled & assembled toys & domestic appliances. His persistence in Chinese ink returned him with the Gold Award in National Calligraphy & Seal Carvings Exhibition for Young & Middle-aged Artists at the age of 24. As an ambitious young artist, he never stopped walking but further explored Chinese ink art in creative ways.

Although specializing on traditional ink painting, Shao Yan was attached to contemporary western art too. Biography of Van Gogh ignited his longing to be a professional artist. Expressionism, abstract expressionism & pop art offered him with unlimited inspiration. In late 1990, Shao Yan started his ink painting experiments at spare time. The unique artistic form of ink rendering gradually infatuated him. Shao Yan commanded concrete basic skills & sensitive intuition to art, which played as the starting point of his ink painting experiments. His ink art was not conceptive neither visionary, differentiating him from other so-called artists in the name of calligraphy. Shao Yan strongly advocated the view that contemporary creation must be integrated with the venation of Chinese civilization. All of his artistic works (traditional calligraphy, contemporary calligraphy, Chinese character art, contemporary ink painting, performance art) were boundlessly expanded with a close link to tradition (to most of us, tradition was obstinate).

Shao Yan’s new idea was ink shooting marked with his conspicuous personality. Ink shooting was a series of ink painting experiments from 2008 to write & paint with injector. In January 2008, Shao Yan was hospitalized from acute heart disease. 7 stents were placed into his heart later. This unexpected disease bestowed Shao Yan with deeper understanding of life & death. From then on, an injector became his major tool of writing & painting. The audience would be confronted with cursive script of ink shooting on a huge-sized paper(30m X 15m) covering the whole exhibiting space on 2F, Hall 1, Today Art Museum. It was necessary to climb on the winding corridor supported by scaffold to scan the large calligraphy with the help of searchlight fixed on the ceiling of exhibiting hall at the height of 12.5m. It represented an upside-down to both old writing & viewing methods.

Living Ink Painting, Documentary of “Water’s Life” on Xuan Paper

In 2011, Shao Yan conducted a series ink painting experiments with deep apprehension of water’s role in painting. The ink line shot by the injector was used as background. Then “ink painting” works were immersed in water for over ten hours or even several days to present a natural fusing state of ink & water. It seemed that water became living out of this artistic experiment, turning into a documentary of “water’s life” on Xuan paper. Shao Yan abandoned traditional practice of using water as diluent. Water became the subject of painting, overturning the water-ink relationship & writing in traditional art, elevating & unfolding the naturo pharm of water in ink painting. It was the ultimate form of “zero pen & ink”.

In the secondary exhibiting hall, the audiences were attracted to the 20 lined TV sets, which simultaneously played 20 totally different changes of the same “ink shooting” line after maceration in water. On the wall were 21 visually aggressive & imaginative works created in 2011 by Shao Yan using this living ink painting art.

The art of Shao Yan started from, based on & came out of Chinese character. It corresponded with the trebling levels of meditation on Chan raised by Qing Yuan Xing Si, a master of Chan Buddhism of Song dynasty: mountain is mountain & water is water at the beginning of Chan meditation; mountain is not mountain & water is not water when knowledge emanating from meditation; mountain is still mountain & water is still water when a thorough understanding of Chan is obtained. Life is a journey of going into & coming out of the society. From the unbridledly behavior after receiving the Gold Award in National Calligraphy & Seal Carvings Exhibition for Young & Middle-aged Artists at the age of 24 to calm pursuit in his middle age, Shao Yan has brought numerous surprises through his pilgrims to calligraphy over nearly 30 years. We were then blessed with lights of hope at a time when calligraphy was marginalized in contemporary art.

This exhibition will be open to public from 16 April to 5 May according to report.