Object size: 144.8 x 144.2 cm
Hong Zhu An is a renowned modern ink painter whose artistic career reached a breakthrough in its evolution after he migrated to Singapore in 1993. Before that, he spent a few years as an exile in Australia after leaving China in the late 1980s. Since the 1990s, Hong has become one of the most significant ink painters in the Singapore art scene. The calligraphic elements and tonal and texture treatments remain the key concerns in the artist’s formal exploration of his recent works from 2019 to 2022. The deployment and integration of the formal components enable the artist to construct a pictorial realm evoking poetic imagination and rebuilding aesthetic connections with the ancient traditions of Chinese culture. This work reveals the textural effects and aesthetic tastes inspired by the damaged and fragmented rubbings of ancient stele inscriptions, which Chinese scholars have particularly favoured since the late Qing dynasty.
