Whitestone Gallery Hong Kong is pleased to announce Views of Water, by the innovative Chinese artist, Yang Yongliang. Trained in traditional Chinese ink paintings, majored in Visual Communication in China Academy of Art in Shanghai, and working as a multimedia artist, Yang Yongliang creates works that meld both traditional art forms and digital technology. Each work in Yang’s contemporary reinterpretation carefully recreates the historical aspects into moving images, transforming the static landscape into an active and energetic state. Yang’s distinct style is deeply rooted in his childhood, growing up in a village near Shanghai, where he was experiencing the changes in the Chinese culture and environment. Through his practice, Yang strives to offer an alternative reading on landscape paintings and draws attention to societal issues such as environmental pollution and rapid urbanization.

For Yang’s second solo exhibition with the gallery, Whitestone Gallery Hong Kong will exhibit a new body of works divided into three parts; a new video project of Views of Water, Yang’s latest VR work, Nine Dragons, which made its debut at the Cannes Film Festival 2019 and will be showing in a gallery space for the first time, and a series of lightbox pieces wherein Yang transformed digital images and developed them onto negative films.

Views of Water is a series of six 8-minute videos, where Yang reconceptualized traditional masterpieces from the Song Dynasty painter Ma Yuan (c1160-1225). Footages of the oceans, rivers, and lakes collected by Yang during his stay in New Zealand were incorporated in these videos. The gloomy scenery with tumbling fogs and rippling waves refers directly back to the history of ancient landscape paintings. Yang employed post-image technology to add atmosphere and motions to the pictures, the subtle manipulation of waterscapes conveys a sense of unease and disturbance, with an undercurrent of global concern of the rising sea level and water provision. Within these works, the artist’s enthusiasm towards Asian art history and his perspective on the current situation are intersecting with each other.

Nine Dragons presents an immersive experience with a flight of East Asian dragons, inspired by the Southern Song Dynasty ink artist Chen Rong’s Nine Dragons (1244), a handscroll painting in which nine dragons soar among clouds, mists, whirlpools, fire and rocky mountains. In Yang’s Nine Dragons, starting with the lure of a whirling pearl, the audience is on a journey through a dragon’s point of view, from above the clouds to underneath the ocean, passing impressive landscapes that are widely pictured in traditional Eastern literature and paintings. As the story develops, a misfortune gradually unfolds. Thereby, Yang expresses his disquiet about the ‘dragon’ as a symbol in Chinese culture, as the initial meaning of this symbol is fading over time. Whereas in ancient times, the ‘dragon’ represents literati spirits and character, yet in modern China, it has gathered an association with good luck and fortunes. Furthermore, a special dragon seat equipped with goggles will allow audiences to fully immerse themselves into the moving images, mind traveling through the mountains while simulating the sensations of sitting on the back of a dragon. Drawn from Chen Rong’s enlivened dragon painting, Nine Dragons invites you to enter into the Song Dynasty, yet modern industrial elements are employed. The artist’s highly detailed and laborious works reinvent the oldest traditions while using the newest techniques.

Currently dividing his time between New York and Shanghai, Yang’s works are included in prominent public collections such as Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia; The British Museum, London, UK; Brooklyn Museum, New York, USA; How Art Museum, Shanghai, China; M+ Sigg Collection, Hong Kong, China; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA; Museum of Modern Art, Paris, France; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, USA; The National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia; San Francisco Asian Art Museum, San Francisco, USA, and The Utah Museum of Fine Arts, USA. Yang has been awarded the 2019 Asia Arts Game Changer granted by Asia Society and nominated for The Global Award in Photography and Sustainability in 2019 and the 40th Anniversary of the Recontres d’Arles, Discovery Prize in 2009.

香港 / H Queen’s

香港中环皇后大道中80号 H Queen’s 7-8楼
Tel: +852 2523 8001
Fax: +852 2523 8005
Opening Hours: 11:00 - 19:00
Closed: 周日,周一
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ARTIST

杨泳梁
杨泳梁

杨泳梁出生于上海,2003年毕业于中国美术学院视觉传达设计系,他从2005年起从事当代艺术的试验与创作,涉及摄影、绘画、影像与装置等多种媒介。杨泳梁的作品连结着传统和当下,以现代语言结合数码技术,重现东方传统的审美方式和文人情节。他展开了一种独特的元叙事描述手段,在接受历史、寓言典故、社会文化的启示之后,重塑了一片城市,也重塑了历史长河中那些不断变换的背景。杨泳梁最为人知的是以城市建筑的影像作为画笔,谱写以宋代层峦叠嶂的山水风格为蓝本的数码影像创作。城市化的发展在滋养一个城市的同时也禁锢了它们:正如中国传统文化因其悠久、深邃,而被固有的思想局限。古人通过描绘山水来赞美自然,而杨泳梁的山水则引发人们对当今社会现状的反思。他的作品获大英博物馆和大都会艺术博物馆等著名公共机构收藏。目前艺术家居住并于上海与纽约展开艺术活动中。

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