Lot Essay
In Dawning of Hope series, He Baili depicts landscape cast with rays of morning light captured in broad, lyrical brushstrokes. For the artist, the emerging sunrise symbolises renewal and hope. Born in Guangzhou, He Baili became a student of the Lingnan School of Painting. After immigrating to Canada in 1984, he became inspired by painting in the romantic and impressionist modes, which he blended with that of the Song and Yuan dynasty landscape painting. Refining the splashed ink and the broken ink techniques, he has arrived at a unique style of landscape painting that breaks with the constraints of time and conventions of applying ink and colour.