Haibo and Teng Biao's " Dream Wandering" Exhibition
Opening in New York on December 14, 2018
The 18 ink paintings on the exhibition, drawn with oriental black ink blocks and rice paper, are the remarkable creations of two artists: Haibo and Teng Biao. These works reflect the artists’ new ideas in recent years. The painter Haibo expresses his unique composition and care for humanity, based on his astute observations, intense and painful experiences, and independent thinking regarding the country and the history. The new thoughts and styles expressed in the paintings are extraordinary in recent history of contemporary art.
In 2013, Dr. Teng Biao was invited to give a speech in Europe，and reunited with Haibo in a beautiful windmill village of the Netherlands. Together, they recalled a special time at Peking University 17 years ago. It was in the mid-1990s, and the two were holding an Exhibition at Peking University for the well-known painter and cartoonist Mr. He Wei. Because of his photographs of the Tiananmen Movement of 1989,Haibo had been out of contact with the outside world.
Since then, Haibo has been traveling around China, Thailand, and Europe, to enrich his life experiences, while continuing to explore the art of sorrow and joy. He fearlessly returned to the oriental traditional culture, once again introducing the oriental artistic techniques and style into his work. As a result, his original paintings and photography creations were once again enhanced. Haibo has been guided and inspired by the well-known predecessors of the Chinese art world, including Wang Chaowen, Wu Zuoren, Luo Gongliu, Zhang Wei, Huang Zhou, Pu Jie, Qi Gong, Wu Zuguang, Xiao Shufang, Wen Lipeng, Yan Shangyi, Li Qun, Hou Yimin, and Guang Jun, etc. In the meantime, Teng Biao has become a legal scholar, university instructor, and brave human rights lawyer. But Biao also has a poetic and artistic side: he does not only write poems and novels, but also indulges himself in the exploration and creation of calligraphy.
In this reunion, Haibo and Teng Biao were in deeper communication and the two inspired each other, which led to the new collaboration of the two artists (even with one residing in Europe and the other in United States).
This exhibition will present 18 oriental ink paintings (size: 140cmx70cm). In these paintings, Haibo expressed his complex feelings toward current events, and his inner distress and sadness. The works present unique life forms, rebellious spirits, and artistic tensions through the techniques of transformation, exaggeration, and refining. The composition of the paintings reflects the unique creativity of the artist. His art emphasizes "peril", "wonder", "void", and "nihility." These expressive works often feature perilous peaks and formidable rocks, lonely mountains and vast seas. They reflect the concepts that “form does not differ from emptiness” and “emptiness does not differ from form.” The inspiration is “feeling white as black” and the expression upholds integrity. The brushstrokes convey a strong sense of the great love and great pain of the period in the artists’ native China, exemplify the profound melancholy that the artists feel about living in exile, and appeal for a speedy reawakening in the East.
◆ARTOSINO 265 W37 ST 16FL, New York, New York 10018 ◆ Dec.14-15,2018
