| On September 26th, last year, the Tianjin Academy of Fine Arts celebrated its Centenary Anniversary. The Academy may be seen as Tianjin’s key contemporary cultural agency in promoting new visions and technologies within the Fine Arts—both traditional and synthesis practices are offered in its courses. |  |
Deng Guo Yuan – Laurens Tan
On September 26th, last year, the Tianjin Academy of Fine Arts celebrated its Centenary Anniversary. The Academy may be seen as Tianjin’s key contemporary cultural agency in promoting new visions and technologies within the Fine Arts—both traditional and synthesis practices are offered in its courses.
The Dean of the School of Contemporary Art is Professor Deng Guo Yuan. Deng will exhibit his works in two important solo exhibitions next year in Shanghai and in Hamburg, Germany.
Following his earlier, but still recent series “Distance,” “In the Mountain” and “In the North,” the new body of work “In the Gardens,” is a further development of his foray into transformations between the contemporary and the traditional.
The new series continues his retinal divisions of the landscape.
Deng uses traditional Chinese brush painting techniques as his method to challenge convention, yet he also plays and bathes in its glow. The issue of the brush is central to his synthesis in formulating a solution to make contemporary the traditional. He does this in a way that redefines the significance of a brush’s weight and the role that it plays in representing perspective and space.
Starting from the notion of “Nature as Art” and “Art as Nature,” we see a vague relationship to the Impressionist’s use of fleeting light and colour. Deng has expressly stuck to the theme of landscape in order to investigate his own methods in dealing with retinal vision. The impressions created are comforting in their effortlessness. The confidence of stroke and weight sits well, with an elegant shorthand of perspective, tone and texture to imply detail, color, light and shade.
Botanic motifs—close-ups and distant details are suggested, and complexities decoded. Each work is a field of vision, a comprehensive grid. The viewer’s eye discovers as it explores.
Deng uses the landscape as visionary vehicle. His choice of genre and subject is instrumental to his quest to deconstruct the brush. The artist’s prolific output is a testimony to his desire to reinvent. In order to maintain ingenuity over so many sequential works, each is a different and unique exploration that shows an enigmatic aesthetic stamina.
