ink, brush, stroke
Four contemporary Chinese artists bring their massive works to FGCU
BY NANCY STETSON nstetson@florida-weekly.com

Background image "Sacrificed River" by Pu Lieping

The elements: The sable paint brush, looking a lot like a brush men used to apply shaving cream, sits on the wooden table, patient, pregnant with possibility. By it: a sheet of white paper, a wide expanse of emptiness, like a snow-covered meadow. And: black ink, as black and liquid-y as a starless night.

The class: The students sit in a semi-circle, with some standing against the wall or sitting cross-legged on the floor.

It's a Friday afternoon, Professor Rick Fichthorn's Graphic Design class at Florida Gulf Coast University. The cinderblock walls are white, as are the two freestanding drywalls that meet to form an L, as if the entire room is an empty canvas for artists, beckoning them to leave their mark.

Five guests from China are sharing their art with the students. Each of these artists have roots deep in the soil of traditional Chinese calligraphy, but each one's work has flowered into something quite different and utterly unique, work that is undeniably modern. The characters may be unreadable because they've been painted so large that only a portion of them may be seen, or they may be painted in three dimensions and manipulated, or the characters may be repeated in a pattern or painted on top of each other, character upon character.

COURTESY PHOTO Artist Shao Yan working on a painting.

One of the guests is Dr. Yiguo Zhang, FGCU's executive professor and curator of Asian Art, an internationally recognized expert in the field. Zhang curated "I Am In It: Contemporary Chinese Art Expressions," a landmark show that opened at the university's art gallery the previous evening. Zhang and the four artists are visiting local schools such as the Gateway Charter School and the Renaissance Academy, as well as FGCU classes, to speak about their art and give demonstrations.

After demonstrations by all four artists, Zhang opens up the discussion for questions. He stands in the center of the classroom, translating English into Chinese and Chinese into English. Sometimes more than one artist jumps in and an animated discussion in Chinese ensues.

Associate Professor of Art and Art Program Leader Morgan Paine asks about the importance of negative space in the work, the space around the characters.

"The negative space is so important in Chinese culture," Zhang says. "Some think the negative space is more important than the characters themselves. Every artist cares about negative space."

Paine has additional questions. He's curious as to whether the artists plan their works before they approach the paper, or if the images and characters are created spontaneously.

"Is it like a symphonic score when you paint it out, so you know ahead of time where you're going," he asks, "or is it like jazz, when you don't know what's coming next?"

"We all study the past, ancient calligraphy," Zhang says. "We all have to start in the past, then you have your own understanding. [For example, you learn how to play Mozart.] But the musicians have their own interpretation of Mozart. I studied everyone, then I have my own understanding, my own approach. Where does the image come from? I don't know. You put it together to create something new."

Pu Lieping projects some of his work on one of the drywalls. Using a computer, he turned some of his ink drawings into threedimensional models. The liquid flowing line of a character is frozen in stone or brick, almost as if a breaking wave was instantly frozen in time. The computer flashes on the same character drawn different ways, as if in different typefaces. Then it shows sketches for buildings whose structures are based upon different characters.

"This is very new," Zhang says. "The artist is always challenging himself. A new stroke, a new emotion can bring a new form. You always want to challenge yourself. I may fail, but I want to challenge myself."

A discussion breaks out as to whether people can truly appreciate the art if they don't read Chinese and don't know what the characters say.

"There are many American collectors who don't know the characters, what they are, but they collect the art," Zhang tells the group. "They appreciate the art."

The class ends, and everyone gathers their things.

What did Prof. Fichthorn think of the artists visiting his class?

"It shows cross-culturally, a culture like China puts so much emphasis on the aesthetics of the written word," he says. "That's what we're trying to teach our class - the importance of the art of typography and graphics."

The exhibit: Step into the Art Gallery at FGCU, and you might think you were somehow transported into a wing of the Museum of Modern Art or the Whitney.

The work in "I Am In It: Contemporary Chinese Art Expressions" is big, bold, and unmistakably modern. It demands your attention.

Many of the pieces are so big, they dwarf the viewer.

Reproductions don't do the work justice; in some ways, it's like looking at a snapshot of the Grand Canyon. Even if the photo's blown up to an 8x10, it still doesn't convey the vastness, the sheer magnificence of the real thing.

The exhibit is so big, the gallery can't contain it all. Three pieces were hung at the Margaret S. Sugden Welcome Center on campus, and another three at the Renaissance Academy (1010 5th Avenue South) in Naples.

The pieces call to mind work by Franz Kline, Debuffet, Cy Twombly and Robert Motherwell, while all the time expressing their own vision.

Lan Zhenghui's heavy ink on paper are majestic in person. His "Waterfall," for example, is over three feet high and more than eight feet long. You can feel the rushing water in the forceful strokes, see the spray in the ink spatters.

The texture of the paper and the pulp contribute to the stark beauty of his work.

The rice paper he uses is so large, it takes three people to lift it while making it. And the strokes he creates are so oversized, he creates his own brushes.

In contrast, Yiliao's work uses color and repetition of the same character. Some pieces from his Imprisonment series are on display in this exhibit. "Imprisonment Series No. 9" shows the repetition of a character in gold and silver paint against a black background. The character for "person" is painted silver, inside the character for "house" in gold. The characters are repeated again and again, crowding each other. It looks like a city at night, glowing with light, but each person separated and alienated from each other.

In contrast, Pu Lieping's work doesn't contain any readable Chinese characters. He slices them up and reconstructs them, painting them in such a way that the twodimensional characters look as if they're three-dimensional. His 2007 ink on paper piece, "Song of Weicheng," has thin, spidery strokes, with characters partially obscured with white on the top third of the work, as if in a snowstorm.

Lan Zhenghui - Waterfall

Pu Lieping's also known for collaborating with musicians; he'll paint in a dialogue with them. On Saturday he "painted the music" while three FGCU students performed music composed by George Gershwin and student Edward Rizzo.

Pu Lieping also established the Songfengxuan Gallery in Beijing; it was the first gallery in that city to exhibit modern calligraphy.

Like the others, artist Shao Yan's pieces in the exhibit show a wide range of styles as he's evolved and experimented. His black ink on white paper shows the influence of Franz Kline, while other works demonstrate how he's revolutionized calligraphy, pushing it past its previous borders.

His work, "Be Genial, Sage and Quick" is a short text calligraphic work, the characters growing larger as they reach the bottom of the page, until the bottom is filled with the blackness of the ink; in effect, the character has become the background and the white negative space is now the foreground. And Shao Yan's 2007 piece "Challenge" practically pulsates with color. The white characters that lyrically sweep and tumble over each other in the center are surrounded on either side by an eerie fluorescent lime green. It all seems to almost pulsate on the deep forest green of the edges, that, if you peer closely, looks as if it contains the shadows of characters.

Shao Yan - Challenge

The exhibit is striking in its beauty and innovation. And this is the first time many of these pieces are being seen by an American public.

The eastern and western worlds, it appears, are not that far apart. Here, in this one room, they're connected with a simple brushstroke.

Pu Lieping - Music Series 1-4 Yiliao - Imprisonment Series 9 COURTESY PHOTO Lan artist next to Verve of the moutain, 2006