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Lot Essay
Qiu Deshu is an experimental Chinese artist and an exponent of contemporary Chinese ink-wash painting. His early training with painters of the Shanghai School has enabled him to create the unique Fissuring Series. Drawing inspiration from the cracks in worn and mottled stone slates, Qiu adapted the lines of these complex and delicate fissures for his creative works. Making use of the unique characteristic of Xuan paper, he first soaked the paper and then cut it with a sharp instrument to create rough edges which, as a result, exposing the bottom layers of the paper. These exposed layers of Xuan paper thus evolved through the process of "fissuring" and "change". Over the course of the past thirty years, Qiu's "fissure" works have evolved from simplicity to complexity, and it is these very "fissures" that reveals how this evolution has progressed.
In Fissuring-Genesis-Great-Power No. 4 (Lot 520), Qiu uses traditional Chinese mounting techniques to build up layers of paper, which are painted with ink, mineral colours or free-form seals. Qiu marries rice paper with ink in a tribute to traditional Chinese artistic methods. In his Great Power series, with repeated depictions of Buddhist deities, he captures the divine power present in the ancient Silk Road and Buddhist cave temples, creating a series of contemporary imageries that are bold and meditative. Meanwhile, in his application of the revolutionary "fissuring" technique, he also draws attention to "Tao" - the way of the universe. The artist's works can be characterized by the spirit of independence and vigilance in peacetime, despite the fickleness of existence.
Qiu revisited traditional Chinese landscape painting and made it his principal theme in his series of works Fissuring. Fissuring: Evening Sunlight (Lot 521) is similar to the artistic style of Song Dynasty, Qiu exhibits tiers of mountains arranged in a way that conveys a poetic atmosphere. The gradual addition of layers of colour is one of the major techniques Qiu employs to transform the traditions of Chinese landscape painting. Fissuring exhibits modern elements such as imagery, variety, and two-dimensionality. The artist utilises the exposed layers of Xuan paper to demonstrate visual depth within mountain peaks and rich colours to create a very modern Chinese landscape painting.
In Fissuring-Genesis-Great-Power No. 4 (Lot 520), Qiu uses traditional Chinese mounting techniques to build up layers of paper, which are painted with ink, mineral colours or free-form seals. Qiu marries rice paper with ink in a tribute to traditional Chinese artistic methods. In his Great Power series, with repeated depictions of Buddhist deities, he captures the divine power present in the ancient Silk Road and Buddhist cave temples, creating a series of contemporary imageries that are bold and meditative. Meanwhile, in his application of the revolutionary "fissuring" technique, he also draws attention to "Tao" - the way of the universe. The artist's works can be characterized by the spirit of independence and vigilance in peacetime, despite the fickleness of existence.
Qiu revisited traditional Chinese landscape painting and made it his principal theme in his series of works Fissuring. Fissuring: Evening Sunlight (Lot 521) is similar to the artistic style of Song Dynasty, Qiu exhibits tiers of mountains arranged in a way that conveys a poetic atmosphere. The gradual addition of layers of colour is one of the major techniques Qiu employs to transform the traditions of Chinese landscape painting. Fissuring exhibits modern elements such as imagery, variety, and two-dimensionality. The artist utilises the exposed layers of Xuan paper to demonstrate visual depth within mountain peaks and rich colours to create a very modern Chinese landscape painting.