"Wonderful Life" ─ Lee Sun-Don Frontier Ink Painting
The Poetic Paintings of Life Open Up the Frontier of Contemporary Ink Art!
Having forty years of rich cultural heritage, Artist Professor Lee Sun-Don, in addition to his creations in forms of painting, photography, watercolors, sculpture and installation art, extends his creative frontier to contemporary ink painting, and is to hold in Taipei the X-Power Gallery from June 14 , 2014 until March 31, 2015 "Wonderful Life ─ Lee Sun-Don Frontier Ink Painting” Exhibition to display his latest work "Wonderful Life" series.
The current trendies art form is definitely the contemporary ink painting, which is predicted, over the next five to ten years, to become one of the hottest categories in the art market. Globally, two major international auction company, Christie's and Sotheby's, Beijing Poly, China Guardian and the others of the five major Chinese auction houses have launched since 2012 the special auctions of Ink painting one after another; British Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in USA, and other world major art museums also have launched Chinese Ink Painting Exhibition; in April this year Art Revolution Taipei, the international record-breaking art expo, first launched an area of Contemporary Ink “Water Flows and Color Shows”, receiving strong support from collectors in Taiwan, closing a remarkable number of deals!
The contemporary Ink is highly expected because of its dual characteristics of combining the Chinese and the Western, and the traditional ink painting and the contemporary art. However, the contemporary ink is not only to connect the ink with installation art, photography and other contemporary art forms, nor simply taking ink as an artistic medium, instead, it is a departure from the traditional Chinese ink painting to re-interpret the contemporary spirit and mind, giving Ink the new life. Unlike the Western art taking ink as media of creation, in China, ink painting is a cultural context. The educator Cai Yuanpei, former president of Peking University in early Republic of China, once made a comment on Chinese ink painting: Chinese painting is based on the literature, therefore the Chinese art is linear, the literature impressionistic and subjective. So the excellent contemporary ink painting is sure to base on culture and literature, otherwise it will be only skin deep, but in lack of depth and meaning of work.
In the rise and brewing of contemporary ink, Professor Lee Sun-Don, having the courage to face challenge, taking pleasure to break through, will definitely not miss this moment! Lee Sun-Don, with works deeply imbued with Eastern culture, won the great praise from Professor Achille Bonito Oliva, the international art critic and the Director of two "Venice Biennale": "His artistic depth and breadth reminds of us the inspirations revealed in the works of Bara, Kandinsky, Klee, APOEL, Miro and Matisse and other masters..." Lee Sun-Don is a self-taught player of violin, cello in his early years of life, a famous martial arts novelist whose books being ever listed the top bestseller of Kingstone Bookstore, and being also adapted for the highly popular TV series, a music composer of pieces nominated in the 18th Golden Melody Awards in 2007 for the best composer in the traditional and artistic music. Professor Lee once commented on himself, "I am a painter who have accumulated forty years of literary heritage, thirty years of accomplishment in music, twenty years of diligent spiritual practice to begin my painting. Therefore, with each stoke poems, verses, lyrics, classical literature, or music rise naturally in my mind. As said that poetry and literature enhance character, when the inner world is full of spiritual energy, the works naturally show strength.” And such a rich cultural heritage also became an abundant resource of Professor Lee's ink painting creation.
In the exhibited "Wonderful Life" series, Professor Lee either integrates poetry in the ink painting, or takes the new poetry as painting, or describes mood directly, or paint the heart with love poems, making a series of painting of love poems, in a humorous way to go deep into human heart revealed in modern poems and verses. In a word, it is a narrative painting that paints the words. Professor Lee holds in the creation a little humor, a little emotion, and uses his simple and plain words to bring the viewer into different thinking. The abundant colors of the works mean that life, in any case, is colorful.
Professor Lee Sun-Don rounded esoteric rhyme and situations, but made direct expression through modern poems in “Wonderful Life”, both inheriting the traditional Chinese ink painting, combining calligraphy, poetry and other artistic features, and also showing the artist's creativity and contemporary mind, opening up the frontier of contemporary ink art!
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