Kwai Fung Hin Art Gallery proudly presents the solo exhibition by Pan Gongkai, an internationally renowned contemporary artist, scholar and educationalist, featuring a total of 30 pieces of works created in the past 3 years, including a six-meter long large scale ink painting, the latest series of ink on paper work and a six-meter long multimedia installation work "Melt".
Pan Gongkai has achieved great accomplishments in the area of Chinese painting, art theory, contemporary art and architectural design. Firmly rooted in, but not confined to, Chinese traditions, he has shown enthusiasm for comparative studies of Chinese and western arts, aesthetics and exploration on the future development of Chinese art. In the early 1980s, he proposed that the Chinese and Western artistic systems "are complementary and coexisting, two-way penetrating". Believing that Chinese and Western arts are parallel and compatible pursuits of the ultimate aesthetic, he affirms the essential values of traditional Chinese paintings. The theory attracts wide attention from academia in China.
At the same time with the practice of contemporary ink art, Pan Gongkai is practicing his theory from the academic proposition. The large-scale ink paintings are full of magnificent visual impacts. The works not only reveal the elegance and subtlety of traditional ink and brush skills, but also demonstrate a unique contemporary aesthetic taste and tension. Apart from ink paintings, Pan employs installation works and new media works to explore the development and transformation of traditional ink under the contemporary cultural context.
Born in 1947, Pan Gongkai is the former President of Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing (2001-2014) and the former President of China Academy of Art in Hangzhou (1996-2001), making unmatched contributions towards the contemporary art education in China. Now he is the professor and doctoral supervisor of the Central Academy of Fine Arts, honorary doctorate of San Francisco Art Institute, University of Glasgow and Maryland Institute College of Art.
His works have been widely exhibited, most recently, at Suzhou Museum (2017), San Diego Museum of Art (2015), Frye Art Museum, Seattle (2014), and Today Art Museum, Beijing (2013). In 2011, his installation work "Melt" was exhibited at the 54th Venice Biennale. His works are collected by important museums, including Asian Art Museum of San Francisco; The Frye Art Museum, Seattle; The San Diego Museum of Art; Tokyo University of the Arts; Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall, Taipei; National Art Museum of China, Beijing; Shanghai Art Museum.
Pan Gongkai: Vision from His Ink Works
Exhibition period
25 November 2017 – 15 February 2018
Location
Kwai Fung Hin Art Gallery, G/F, 20 Ice House Street, Central, Hong Kong
