A talk on art between Zhang Xiaolin with Tang Chenghua:Tang:These are the work shown in this exhibition, named “Clouds at the end of sky”.Zhang:I have looked through them, and my feeling could be put into four points.First of all, the concepts of western modernism can still be detected in your paintings. The idea of abstraction origins from the west; and the basic principles and concepts are quintessential in abstract paintings. It is impossible to count on randomness and abandoning the important theoretical principles involved.Secondly, you have employed a lot of black ink, which is less used in the western art expression. Especially after the Impressionism, the whole of western world hardly used any black. It is quite the opposite for traditional Chinese painting, for black is simply the backbone of Chinese art which would literally fall apart without it. In the Chinese concept, between the two state Ying and Yang, one has to be black or the other state becomes meaningless. Seeing you employing the black color in your works, I feel what you added were probably the traditional Chinese elements. Because I knew for one thing that you are Chinese and as a Chinese, getting a good feel about the tradition or experiencing the power brought by black is best way for expression.Thirdly, the revival of the calligraphy in your works was quite smart. Printmaking often creates strong sense of power and structural expansion. But the interesting thing is that you have added the writing quality of Chinese calligraphy into it. The writing quality added sensitivity, rhythm and atmosphericalness, which printmaking alone failed to create. Therefore, you have revived the writing, or you have released writing in your works, which I think is of great importance. Many of your works could be understood in terms of calligraphical spirit. Although your works are not calligraphy, modern calligraphy could in the end still find similarities with them.Lastly, there are compositional elements as well. As an example, the visual results of these two blocks of colors are purely compositional. Actually one could totally pick out very realistic elements in your paintings.Tang:I think that I search in the nature and find an abstract element, which could not be separated from the reality, to expand and magnify. What you just put was actually more appropriate, that it is just more personal and individual. I have been using black in my paintings, especially in 1996, when I had my first exhibition back in china. I felt then that only with engraving and printing techniques, the result was simple and thin in the appearance, failing to meet up with my expectations. I knew that I needed to search for other types of expression, for example, the use of color. I think that colors are very emotional; and this type of expression is perfectly suitable for the compositional element of my works. What you capture in my painting in terms of forms, are actually realistic forms being magnified fifty, a hundred times or even bigger, to create such vision experience. This feeling of expansion has a quality of its own. I was very pleased at finding this way of expression, by mixing printmaking, painting techniques, sometimes the wash-down of traditional Chinese painting and collage. I think any medium or techniques can be employed. When I can imagine what a painting would look like at the end, the plan reaching there is not that important. The greatest part is the pleasure and fun I gained in the duration of the creation.This installation aimed to make the exhibition space fuller and more harmonious, in a thirteen by nine meter room that is far from huge, when its walls were full of paintings. Making the installation is a process, exhibiting how the space was used; and it was named the same as the paintings, “cloud in the Heaven”. This installation sets into two parts. The parts underneath is filled with two hundred kilogram of cotton, settling a very gentle and soft feel; and the part above consists of seventeen wooden pillars each individually painted. I wanted to create an atmospherical feel in the space, namely “cloud in the Heaven”. I also wanted people to be surprised at the way it had been done. Actually, it is all about creating a sort of experience, which would greatly differ depending on the viewers.Zhang:Your explanation about the installation is quite similar to what I thought; after all there is a traditional concept within it. That is when you were creating you might not get it, and it is fine to get it after you’ve done the creating part; this is definitely interesting and fun matter!Tang:Probably I did not put too much thinking to it. And why is that? Actually the life experience I had, over a decade in abroad, I have seen a great number of things and they had been accumulating. The feelings and thoughts might have been there inside me for long time, but without the emotional spark, they were not carried out into pieces of work. I’d only do it when the time is right. And I think, just as you said earlier, I did not purposefully use the element of culture. I am fairly simple; since I started learning printmaking, I found materials and mediums most interesting. Down with this route, I mix this material with that, creating certain visual impact. I tend to pay more attention on this rather than what others might feel about my works.Zhang:In this way, you made the exhibition space into a spiritual space with your two and three dimensional works; and it is a very good point. Each code still has a strong sense of expansion; and it is not only the paintings being exhibited, but the whole space.Tang:I want to extend my exhibition experience this time, because I have had a lot of solo exhibitions abroad which were mainly paintings. And it was a wonderful opportunity Central Academy of Fine Arts provided me with. The eight hundred square-metered space was all for myself to all I wanted.Zhang;If you really want me to word-down the judgment to your works, I think it is appropriate to put all of them, including ink-wash, oil, and printmaking into the present artistic environment of China. And I hold the opinion that there are a few positive points.First of all, amongst all the current artists, you are the one that is strongly experimental and adventurous, for you are totally searching for all possibilities and ways of expression. In that sense, you are actually an experimental artist can not be branded as a modern abstractionist. You attitude towards the whole experimental work has been pure and all surrounding your own expression, imagination and conception. I could not detect a bit of opportunistic tendency or whatever that may meet up to the consumerist taste. You are in your own laboratory, in your own excitement, searching for your interests and creating art works without realizing. I think this is essential for an artist.Secondly, judging by the expressive style, basically the form of expression, your works have outstanding individuality that at the same time is coherent with this era. Unlike the earlier Abstractionism, which a lot of the times I could find the original model; I failed to find yours, which is a sign showing that you are individually matured and finally hatched-out, finding what only belongs to yourself.Thirdly, you are smart. You have mastered in manipulating all techniques and expression, and making a fusion with them; in addition to that, you have successfully employed traditional Chinese aesthetic principles and techniques, such as your using of black and the writing quality of calligraphy. It is indeed difficult and not any artist is luck enough to find it.Lastly, your art goes far beyond the concepts of the west and the east. What does it mean to be Chinese? And what does west mean? In your art, these concepts are non-existent and no great matter. In the past we have had a lot of talks about the eastern and the western; and actually you have surpassed them, regardless of your wish of showing the middle. I think your art contains both the eastern and the western; and you could freely use all of these cultural relics without dividing them into west or east. At the end, all you have to be is yourself, Tang Chenghua. Therefore, after such surpassing, something that both the easterns and westerns can feel is created – mutual spiritual state of all humanity. And it would not be something that the easterns may be pleased while the westerns get all confused neither something that the westerns enjoy while the easterns feel totally distant. I believe in your “printmaking” art, because as a Chinese, I feel them and trance into the state as soon as see them.