INK PAINTINGS BY LIU DAN, ZENG XIAOJUN, and introducing TAI XIANGZHOU

Asia Week New York:
March 18th – March 26th 2011

Press Release (PDF)

Press inquiries, contact:
Edith Dicconson
212-838-7744

Friends of The Chinese Porcelain Company have seen in past exhibitions how Liu Dan (b. 1953) and Zeng Xiaojun (b. 1954) infuse traditional literati themes with a vibrant contemporary spirit. Through their works, the modern viewer discovers the art of China's past as it is also reconfigured to make previously minor landscape elements central, significant, and transcendent.

This exhibition of ten ink paintings will feature large, expressive poppies by Liu Dan, unusual trees by Zeng Xiaojun, and poetic landscapes by Tai Xiangzhou. Together they reveal a distinctive, modern interpretation of the literati spirit.

Liu Dan's masterful technique with ink on paper is timeless. He is inspired by nature to create provocative forms that radiate an incandescent vitality and subtle lyricism. An artist of international renown, his paintings have been featured in critically acclaimed exhibitions and placed in museum collections in the U.S. and abroad.

Zeng Xiaojun currently resides in his hometown of Beijing after spending fourteen years in the U.S. An avid collector of Ming and Qing furniture as well as scholar's objects, Zeng Xiaojun is most passionate about wood, which is often featured in vivid detail in his art. For this exhibition, he demonstrates again his sensitivity to the personality and sentience of wood in his depictions of two trees at the Situ Temple outside Suzhou.

Inheritor to these living masters' movement to re-imagine traditional Chinese aesthetics is Tai Xiangzhou (b. 1968), who makes his U.S. debut in this group exhibition. Tai Xiangzhou has studied classical Chinese painting under Liu Dan since 2006 and is currently finishing his Ph.D. at the Art Academy of Qing Hua University with Bao Lin as his advisor

Tai has worked to recover paper-making techniques of the Tang, Song, Ming, and Qing dynasties. Through his studies, he discovered a silk-like paper called Chenxing Tang zhi that was favored by scholarly-minded Li Houzhu (r. 961-975 A.D.), the last ruler of the Southern Tang Dynasty, who was an artist, connoisseur, and collector and who even built a pavilion to store this special paper for which it was named. Tai has Chenxing Tang zhi made especially for him by old masters using the very same 10th century techniques.

In Chinese painting, the interaction of ink and paper is crucial, so on this exceptional paper Tai uses costly Qianlong-era ink. The resulting artwork pays homage to the techniques and artful effects of the past while the forms and lines are clearly situated in the present.

Established in 1984, The Chinese Porcelain Company offers Asian and European works of art and furniture of the finest quality. Our specialties are Chinese ceramics and works of art for the Imperial, Domestic and Export markets, Asian sculpture, including those of Chinese, Tibetan, Indian, Khmer and Vietnamese origin, French and Continental furniture, ceramics and works of art, and contemporary Chinese paintings.