| Bo Yun (Li Yongcun) is among the few modern Chinese artists who, while maintaining respect for the ancient heritage of Chinese ink painting, have succeeded in integrating new ideas and techniques that give their work a contemporary feel. Bo Yun’s vertical diptychs in ink and color on paper, like ancient Chinese scrolls, are microcosms of the universe, encompassing earth, water and sky. At the same time, the semi-abstract, free painting style of his landscapes in both ink and color and oil on canvas shows the influence of Abstract Expressionism. |  |
Bo Yun – Hilary Binks
Bo Yun (Li Yongcun) is among the few modern Chinese artists who, while maintaining respect for the ancient heritage of Chinese ink painting, have succeeded in integrating new ideas and techniques that give their work a contemporary feel. Bo Yun’s vertical diptychs in ink and color on paper, like ancient Chinese scrolls, are microcosms of the universe, encompassing earth, water and sky. At the same time, the semi-abstract, free painting style of his landscapes in both ink and color and oil on canvas shows the influence of Abstract Expressionism. In whatever medium, Bo Yun’s paintings express a joy in nature and particularly in the spiritual essence of the landscape.
Bo Yun was born in a small village in Shanxi Province, northern China, in 1948. His father, who joined the Communist Party at the age of 16, died when Bo Yun was only one year old. Bo Yun felt the absence of his father keenly and grew up with a sense of deep loneliness that was exacerbated when he was sent to a military boarding school in Beijing at the age of six. Deprived of the warmth and affection he longed for, he retreated instead into his own inner world of dreams and imagination. He received no artistic influence at home, but his father’s family were scholars whose stern portraits stared down from the wall. He liked and admired the hardworking villager folk but never felt part of them. From an early age, he was constantly deep in thought, trying to make sense of the world.
Growing up in Beijing from the age of six, Bo Yun’s life became divided into two parts: in Beijing he spoke the local dialect, had a circle of friends and eventually a job, but never quite felt that he belonged. Every year or two, he would go back to Shanxi Province to see his grandmother. There, again he would speak the local dialect and see the village folk. His childhood friends are now grandfathers. He still feels affection for them but is no longer a member of that society.
During the Cultural Revolution, Bo Yun studied at the Central Academy of Fine Art in Beijing. Along with other students there, he was branded an “intellectual partisan” and was sent to work in the rice fields for four years. Painting was forbidden. At that time, he also became involved in political movements. In 1973, Bo Yun returned to Beijing but fell into deep despair. At school he had read many 18th and 19th-century French, English and Russian novels, as well as Chinese literature, which made a deep impact on him. How could he survive in a crude society lacking in freedom and art?
In 1979, Bo Yun joined the Democracy Movement, an elite youth group who pursued ideals of spiritual freedom and intellectual independence. He found hope again. Artists in the group formed the “Stars” who, in 1979, made history by hanging their politically “incorrect” paintings and sculptures on the railings outside the National Museum of Fine Arts in Beijing. This act of defiance, the first unauthorized exhibition of Chinese art since 1949, set the stage for an era of liberation for future artists. For the first time, Bo Yun felt that he was painting from his inner self as a true artist. From then on, he was able to discover his potential and to seek his inner world. During the first “Stars” exhibition, Li used the pseudonym Bo Yun to conceal his identity from the police, and he has kept it ever since.
At that time, Bo Yun painted landscapes in ink and colour. These paintings, of serene water villages and boats on the river, were in a realistic style, but they were not depictions of real places, rather images from the world of his dreams. In that world, there were no wars or conflict, only peace and harmony. Gradually, that perfect world evolved in his mind, influenced by ancient Chinese philosophers like Lao Zi who wrote of a merging of man and heaven and of a unity between man and the natural world. Sensing that such abstract sentiments required an abstract style, Bo Yun abandoned realism for semi-abstraction. He also began painting in oil and composite materials in his never-ending quest to express his feelings towards the world.
Bo Yun’s semi-abstract ink landscapes have a tranquil, dreamlike serenity as well as a shade of pathos. Large areas of mist and clouds dominate the paintings, evoking the vastness of the land and sky. In his oil paintings, his free brushwork gives the painting surface a sense of dramatic energy. He admires many Western painters; Michelangelo and Raphael, Caravaggio, Velazquez and Zurbaran, Rembrandt and Vermeer, Millet and Modigliani. Each has a unique style and technique but what most impresses him is the spirit manifest in their art, their feelings towards the world. The most significant influence on his work remains that of Chinese culture, especially the literature, poetry and paintings of the Song and Yuan dynasties.
Inspiration for Bo Yun’s paintings comes both from his imagination and from natural landscapes. However, while nature forms an impression, the act of creation is driven rather by a certain emotion, and he has no idea of how the painting will look when it is completed. As he paints, his emotions become intensified, driving him to find the most appropriate color and form. Like artists of the Song dynasty, he creates a perfect world in his art that gives him inner peace.
"Reprinted with the permission of Zee Stone Gallery, Hong Kong"
