Solitude 「幽居」 A Solo Exhibition by Gao Xingjian

Gao Xingjian, Notte bianca, 1991, 67 x 92 cm, Ink on Paper

Update:
In view of the current rising locally transmitted COVID-19 infection and active clusters in Singapore, starting from July 19, 2021, the iPreciation physical gallery will be temporarily closed to public viewing until further notice. The current exhibition, Solitude – A Solo Exhibition by Gao Xingjian, can be viewed online: http://www.ipreciation.com/solitude

Internationally acclaimed Chinese-French artist Gao Xingjian (b. 1940) is a novelist, playwright, poet, theatre and film director, painter and philosopher. He was born in Ganzhou, Jiangxi Province, China in 1940 and moved to Paris in 1988. In 2000, he won the Nobel Prize for Literature. With his rich experience, he skillfully blends thousands of years of Chinese and Asian wisdom with European classics. iPreciation is honoured to present Solitude 《幽居》 — A Solo Exhibition by Gao Xingjian, which showcases 21 important and monumental works by Gao between 1991 – 2012.

His novels have been translated into 40 languages and are widely distributed globally. More than 120 productions of his plays have been performed in Europe, Asia, North America, South America and Australia. More than 100 painting exhibitions were held in art museums, art centres and galleries throughout Europe, Asia and the United States, of which 90 were his solo exhibitions, and more than 50 art catalogues of his paintings and photographs have been published. In the last 10 years, he has produced three poetic films that integrate poetry, painting, drama, dance and music, turning film into a comprehensive art form.

Touted as ‘the modern Renaissance man’ by the 2008 Milan Arts Festival, Gao did not employ the western medium despite his training in oil painting. Gao chooses to paint solely with ink – a medium said to be close to the heart and imbued with the spirit of the painter. Despite his departure from the western medium since the 1970s, traces of oil painting still linger in his works. He often attributes his layering of several different inks to his early practice in oil.

Interestingly, while rice paper is conventionally paired with ink, Gao predominately paints ink on large canvases, as the dramatic size of these canvases offers more volume and depth. The presence of large empty spaces gives rise to a spiritual quality that is hard to miss. With just a white paper or canvas and ink of different intensities, he brilliantly introduces a spectrum of light, shade and shadow. These three elements bring forth an amorphous realm, known as the “inner vision”, that stands at the crossroads of figurative and abstraction, not bounded by the passage of time.