Lot Essay
Lee Ufan’s From Line is an example of work from one of the most influential Asian abstractionists of the twentieth century. This painting mirrors important themes in the artist’s oeuvre such as: temporality, materiality and praxis. From Line was created with the simple constraint that each brush stroke is made within the span of a breath. Carefully pulling a layer of varnish from the top to the bottom of the surface, the later-added azure pigment slowly fades as the brush approaches the center of the canvas and the artist finishes his breath. The image that is created, when regarded as a whole, is a manifestation of the artist’s conceptual and physical relationship with his body as well as the work of art.
Ufan’s interest in mark making is a contemplation of the starting point for all forms of art, the line. As the artist has said, “a line must have a beginning and an end. Space appears within the passage of time, and when the process of creating space comes to an end, time also vanishes” (L. Ufan, quoted in J. Fischer (ed.), Selected Writings by Lee Ufan 1970-96, London 1996, p.54). This conception of space and time draws heavily from the Buddhist conception of ‘nothingness’ as an entity itself.
In terms of painting technique, Lee uses commercially available canvas treated with oil-based gesso, and appears to apply a very thin layer of oil paint on the stretched canvas, to be complimented with blue or vermillion brushstrokes. Yet close examination reveals that his brushstrokes are first rendered by a transparent medium, which may be comprised of alkyd resin mixed with acrylic. Before this layer of varnish-medium becomes dry, coarsely ground mineral pigments are sprinkled onto it. The canvas hitherto is placed horizontally, and when it is flipped into a vertical position, the excessive pigment granules fall off from the unsized areas. The thickness of accumulated granular pigments decides the shades within each stroke; pigments in the darkest areas may be as thick as 4 millimeters, but practically no pigment particles exist in the lightest areas.
This technique is derived from traditional glue painting. Moreover, he does not use the traditional method of picking up the paint with a brush and rendering a stroke with varying shades of a color. He, instead, controls the density of pigment granules to alter the shades of a color.
Ufan’s conceptual and practice based method was developed as a pioneering member of the Mono-ha (“School of Things” in Japanese) Group. As the main theorist of the Mono-ha Movement, Lee Ufan proposed to maintain as closely as possible to the originality of material, and his unique painting technique reflects this kind of theory. One of the reasons for him to grind the azurite into coarse granules and sprinkles them to form shades of color is to emphasize the originality of material. Moreover, the gradual transition from being thick and heavy to being sparse and light, from being substantial to being bare, brings forth the ontological significance of lines or blotches within the pictorial surface. Lee's abstract paintings not only convey theoretical ideas but also cultivate new techniques, perfectly meeting Eastern and Western painting traditions.
Ufan’s interest in mark making is a contemplation of the starting point for all forms of art, the line. As the artist has said, “a line must have a beginning and an end. Space appears within the passage of time, and when the process of creating space comes to an end, time also vanishes” (L. Ufan, quoted in J. Fischer (ed.), Selected Writings by Lee Ufan 1970-96, London 1996, p.54). This conception of space and time draws heavily from the Buddhist conception of ‘nothingness’ as an entity itself.
In terms of painting technique, Lee uses commercially available canvas treated with oil-based gesso, and appears to apply a very thin layer of oil paint on the stretched canvas, to be complimented with blue or vermillion brushstrokes. Yet close examination reveals that his brushstrokes are first rendered by a transparent medium, which may be comprised of alkyd resin mixed with acrylic. Before this layer of varnish-medium becomes dry, coarsely ground mineral pigments are sprinkled onto it. The canvas hitherto is placed horizontally, and when it is flipped into a vertical position, the excessive pigment granules fall off from the unsized areas. The thickness of accumulated granular pigments decides the shades within each stroke; pigments in the darkest areas may be as thick as 4 millimeters, but practically no pigment particles exist in the lightest areas.
This technique is derived from traditional glue painting. Moreover, he does not use the traditional method of picking up the paint with a brush and rendering a stroke with varying shades of a color. He, instead, controls the density of pigment granules to alter the shades of a color.
Ufan’s conceptual and practice based method was developed as a pioneering member of the Mono-ha (“School of Things” in Japanese) Group. As the main theorist of the Mono-ha Movement, Lee Ufan proposed to maintain as closely as possible to the originality of material, and his unique painting technique reflects this kind of theory. One of the reasons for him to grind the azurite into coarse granules and sprinkles them to form shades of color is to emphasize the originality of material. Moreover, the gradual transition from being thick and heavy to being sparse and light, from being substantial to being bare, brings forth the ontological significance of lines or blotches within the pictorial surface. Lee's abstract paintings not only convey theoretical ideas but also cultivate new techniques, perfectly meeting Eastern and Western painting traditions.