What is considered “ink” painting? A conversation with Liang Quan

Liang Quan, Landscape series, ink and color on paper

The following notes were recorded in conversation with Liang Quan living and working in Shenzhen, China.
Liang Quan (b. 1948) is considered one of the pioneers of contemporary ink painting working in China today. In this interview the use of “ink painting” describes the radical practice and contemporary exploration of the Chinese painting tradition using materials ink and water and paper (also translated as “ink and wash”, “contemporary ink,” “new Chinese painting.”)

What is ink? Or what is ink in the context of painting today?
In order to better to understand ink painting–and the much discussed topic of its relationship to contemporary practice–we should know that “ink painting” and “ink art” are two different things. Ink painting “shui mo hua” is comprised of water and Chinese ink (“shui” and “mo”). Often when we say “shui mo” it doesn’t just refer to ink painting, but to the use of ink and water to create art that embodies the tradition of Chinese painting and culture. The exploration of using ink and referring to the tradition of Chinese painting is part of a greater narrative to define a cultural identity.

Do you consider your works “abstract”?
Yes and No. Having lived and studied abroad, my experience in creating art was deeply influenced by the works by other artists that seemed similar to the ink painting tradition in China (e.g. Brice Marden and Cy Twombly). My use of collage, combining strips of ink and/or tea stained paper, may seem abstract to the unknowing eye, and without direct correlation to a depiction of reality. But my works, collages, are actually diagrams of traditional Chinese landscape paintings and the Chinese still life painting genre of birds and flowers. For example, in Chinese landscape painting, there are multiple points of perspective. Unlike Western painting that is often composed by one – two point perspective, Chinese landscapes are painted on a vertical plane sectioned by many strips of perspective points. To view a Chinese painting, one’s eye usually follows the flow of water from the bottom of the mountains as it meanders farther into the hills and up the composition of the painting. The ink and tea stained strips are literal outlines of the flow of water expressed in a traditional Chinese painting, and using intermittent vertical strips and color, they illustrate a meandering path similar to the viewing of a multiple Chinese painting. The results are abstract landscape paintings.

Dong Yuan (c. 932-962) Xiao Xiang Tu an early example of the maturation of landscape painting in the Southern style. which emphasizes empty space to create a sense of distance and expanse.

Can you describe the moment you realized that you had discovered your style of the “Landscape” and “Tea” series?
After realizing the distinction between three-point or multi-point perspective (Western versus Chinese art practice), Liang Quan chose to explore this theme in conjunction with the ideals of the “Nan Pai” or Southern School*. Trained in printmaking and traditional painting, he decided to paint landscapes in the manner of abstract paintings. This process of painting contains a kind of “spontaneity”, that inspires opportunity, coincidence, or accident.

Liang Quan’s exploration of ink in contemporary art practice is a radical approach to re-interpreting the Chinese painting tradition and in the context of contemporary art in China today. By addressing the theme of Chinese tradition, he is distinguished from his contemporaries choosing to use painting as a depiction of or social response to modern society.

*Notes on the Southern School of Chinese landscape painting.
During the Ming dynasty (1555 – 1636), the theory of the Southern School of painting emerged in association with the concepts of Southern Chan (Zen) Buddhism. The artists of the Southern school are associated with the Buddhist concept of the individual self as the key to sudden and intuitive enlightenment. Their approach to the creative process of painting and the styles they adopted emphasized on direct personal experience. Paintings in the Southern style place importance on the development of a kind of abstract space, where there is no emphasis on layering or depth, and have largely influenced subsequent Chinese painting history.