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Lot Essay
Huang Dan specialises in the painting technique of accumulating-ink. Huang Gongwang expounded on this in his writing Secrets to Depicting Landscape, "Ink usage is the most difficult aspect of painting. Thin-ink can be used to define the visual field. Subsequently, solid-ink and soaked-ink can be used to outline and differentiate distances. Therefore, very often, the use of ink is dense and moist on the paper." Layers upon layers of pigments accumulating on the surface further emphasize and assert the presence of the work. In the work Photograph Studio in Shanghai (Lot 51), the volume of the accumulating-ink has an absorbing effect on the visual experience. As a result, the feeling of anxiety inherent in the colour red is greatly reduced. This treatment synergistically makes the two intense hues complement each other in the most harmonious way.
The sense of theatrics in the pictures provides copious amount of space for the subject matter to express what it needs to say. As if the artist is narrating, the visual elements tell a story: Galloping on a red horse, the carousel goes round and round with the restless sound of the hooves, such is the passage of time that cannot be stopped. Frozen in the picture also is the past that cannot be returned. There will always be places that one cannot reach: such as the other side of the shore, the clouds, the edge of the skies, and the irreversible past. The imminent concern is the unknown in the future. The regret of the next moment is the finality of knowing the outcome. There is neither good nor bad in knowing and not knowing. What is known and unknown is always changing with the passage of time. It is just like the galloping horse in the carousel. Round and round, the immutable truth is that time is unstoppable. Time is the most mystical thing. "Ka-Cha" is the veiled unknown, the ineffable feeling of anxiety, the sweetness of wind, the wind-blown skirt, and the spinning of thecarousel. They are all frozen in time. These are the only struggles against time.
Born in 1979. in Beijing, China. Huang Dan studied at the Chinese Painting Department of the Central Academy of Fine Arts and received her BFA in 2001 and MFA from the same department in 2004. Major exhibitions of the artist include: Four Gates Game-Ink Exhibition, Today Museum, Beijing, China (2009); New Ink Painting Art Exhibition, Times Art Museum, Beijing, China (2010); Contact Lens - Through Different Horizon, Hua Fu Art Space, Shanghai, China (2011); Silent Ink, Mizuma & One Gallery, Beijing, China (2012), and ART021, Rock Bund, Shanghai, China (2013). Huang Dan currently lives in Beijing, China.
The sense of theatrics in the pictures provides copious amount of space for the subject matter to express what it needs to say. As if the artist is narrating, the visual elements tell a story: Galloping on a red horse, the carousel goes round and round with the restless sound of the hooves, such is the passage of time that cannot be stopped. Frozen in the picture also is the past that cannot be returned. There will always be places that one cannot reach: such as the other side of the shore, the clouds, the edge of the skies, and the irreversible past. The imminent concern is the unknown in the future. The regret of the next moment is the finality of knowing the outcome. There is neither good nor bad in knowing and not knowing. What is known and unknown is always changing with the passage of time. It is just like the galloping horse in the carousel. Round and round, the immutable truth is that time is unstoppable. Time is the most mystical thing. "Ka-Cha" is the veiled unknown, the ineffable feeling of anxiety, the sweetness of wind, the wind-blown skirt, and the spinning of thecarousel. They are all frozen in time. These are the only struggles against time.
Born in 1979. in Beijing, China. Huang Dan studied at the Chinese Painting Department of the Central Academy of Fine Arts and received her BFA in 2001 and MFA from the same department in 2004. Major exhibitions of the artist include: Four Gates Game-Ink Exhibition, Today Museum, Beijing, China (2009); New Ink Painting Art Exhibition, Times Art Museum, Beijing, China (2010); Contact Lens - Through Different Horizon, Hua Fu Art Space, Shanghai, China (2011); Silent Ink, Mizuma & One Gallery, Beijing, China (2012), and ART021, Rock Bund, Shanghai, China (2013). Huang Dan currently lives in Beijing, China.