Yang Yanping

Celebrated for her signature use of color and her rich, full compositions, Yang Yanping has created a body of work over the last thirty years that has been noted for its elegance of form and exuberance of expression. The present exhibition showcases the best of Yang's recent work, in which she continues to explore the expressive possibilities of the Chinese ink-on-paper tradition. Yang creates environments of delicate and dreamlike ink washes that are at once ethereal and vigorous, peaceful and dramatic.

Born in Nanjing in 1934, Yang was one of the leading young artists of her generation and has since gained international recognition as one of the finest contemporary ink painters from China. Her works explore the meaning of freedom as a subject for reflection and often return to the theme of the lotus flower, a sustaining source of inspiration for Yang over many years.

Hers is a visual language in which calligraphy and representative forms come together to convey joy, sorrow, anger, and longing. Using Chinese colored ink on rice paper, Yang paints robust forms—from lotuses and rosebuds to powerful calligraphic strokes and abstract shapes—that are almost purely defined by the sheer volume of her colors rather than by line, though the latter is certainly present in the finely-wrought details that weave their way through her paintings.

Yang Yanping's works are both informed by the techniques and intellectual fervour of China's long ink painting tradition and infused with a strong modernist sense of movement and abstraction.