What we see reflected in twentieth-century Chinese shanshui (ink landscape) painting is the destruction and chaos wrought upon the natural landscape by the century’s civilizational conflicts, and the resulting pandemonium of symbols and images. Xu Longsen seeks to restore some kind of order to shanshui from within this chaotic and broken state. In his monumental compositions, his gaze looks far into the past, to the dense mists and the boundless primeval darkness at the beginning of time, when Heaven and Earth came into being Within this monumentality of scale, the forms, patterns and connotations of brush painting all undergo a fundamental change.

Xu Longsen has revived the cardinal virtues of Chinese painting—the qualities of being forceful and unrestrained, open-hearted and expansive. Over a period of five centuries, the presence of these qualities in Chinese painting was gradually diminished under the dual impact of the literati ‘studio culture’ of the Ming and Qing periods, and the modern art academy. In Xu Longsen’s creative process, these qualities have been recaptured and revitalized.

Opening reception: Saturday, 4 October 2-4pm

Gallery address: 2/F, Mai On Industrial Building, 19 Kung Yip Street, Kwai Chung