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home > art > former resident artists |
zheng yuande |
Left: 'Private
rites'
'Dialogue of light & shadow' oil on canvas, 1994, 76 x 76 cm
'Whispering Corridors' oil on canvas, 1994, 46 x 27 cm
'Torso of male dancer' dental rock, 1994, 12cm & 15 cm
'Actor at rest' charcoal on paper, 1994, 64 x 46cm |
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The
Echo of Light and Shadow The
echo between light and shadow is not an unfamiliar language in art.
Through the years, Zheng Yuande has developed this language in
his paintings and sculpture by manipulating inter-personal space, feeling,
mood and the body language of his subjects.
His topic remains the same: the backstage drama of the Chinese
opera, the rarely seen moments of tension and release of the actors and
actresses backstage, though Yuande is no longer interested in capturing
the 'real face' of the Chinese opera. More
than ten years ago, he was painting the shifting faces of this unique
art form. His passion for
the opera has taken him through three artistic phases.
He started by capturing the sound , the colours of the stage and
the story line, the stylized masks and make-up, the symbolic gestures.
This phase did not last long, and he moved o to paint the hidden
colours in the life of the performers backstage.
The third stage is a deeper study of is subject matter in attempting
to express on canvas the silent thought so the actors just before or after
a performance. 'He Who Was
the Hero Just Now!' won for the artist the National Art Gallery's Young
Contemporary award in 1985. In
1994, Yuande was awarded a Petronas Art Salon Young Contemporaries Prize
for his painting, but Yuande knows that an artist does not paint merely
for awards as the involvement in his art is total.
In the early days, he was more concerned with the psychology behind
the movement of every character by understanding subtle hints of colour
and plays of light and he has now moved onto more subtle challenges in
his art evolution. The
language of Silence is the language of Light and Shadow.
Every artist knows that Light, the giver of presence, casts a shadow
belonging to Light, and in between this Light and Shadow is the realm
of Silence: in the heart of Silence is the Echo.
This is the art of Yuande in his current Chines opera series.
One cannot help feeling that the young artist is using the opera
more and more as a metaphor, for he is no longer interested in painting
the real facial expressions, emotions or psychology of movement; these
languages have given way to the language of Echoes between Light and Shadow. Echoes
mirror their resonates loudly in Silence.
Yuande's is a spatial language of inter-relationships between forms.
and he uses it to convey his feelings, building up dark sombre tones of
shade, concealing markings between layers of shade and maneuvering light
within the space of shadows. His
opera figures have taken on a universal quality of old world romanticism,
its mystique rested in a more mature and challenging manner.
The mastery of his medium, oil on canvas, is more complete and
he cites as inspiration Rembrandt and Turner with Pre-Raphaelite colours,
but he has also returned to draw upon the dynamics and ideas of Chinese
calligraphy to build his paintings. In
sculpture as in painting, Yuande's approach is minimalist in essence and
calligraphic in style. His
challenge in this current series of works is to express in minimal strokes
the vastness and fullness of space, rich layers of feeling and the intense
resonance of echoes between Light and Shadow, paring back unnecessary
strokes and colous by going back to the basics of solid and void instead
of colour and tone. His
intention is to wield understatement and restraint, drawing the viewer
closer to his works, so that they may discover themselves within them.
He is more aware now of forging a closer bond with his audience
by withdrawing his dominance as artist, and allowing his work to declare
its own presence. Powerful
silence, whose echoes speak of tone, colour, nuance and innuendo, is sure
to score an impact in art as it does in life.
For the artist, this language is a challenging search for basic
breathing and release, and to hold the mirror of art to the echo of Light
and Shadow. Zhang Yuande's
journal of Chinese opera is this Echo.
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