Some time in the early 1980s, two Singapore pioneer artists Cheong Soo- Pieng ( 1917-1983) and Chen Wen -Tsi (1906-1992) gave very contradictory comments on a budding young artist’s works. Cheong said his paintings were too dark and advised the young man not to use strong  colours in his paintings, but the lighter ones instead to express his deep feelings .

　　The other pioneer artist, Chen, said his paintings were not black enough, and dared him to paint in the darker colours to show the tensions within. Only works like that, he explained, could carry weight and make a difference.

　　Both pioneer artists held very different opinions, one saying his paintings should be in lighter tones, the other wishing they could be in darker shades. These comments had a great impact on the young artist. Fortunately, he was not confused by them, but evaluated the differences carefully instead.

　　He had known that Cheong admired the use of black ink to express yijing or mood, found in paintings as long ago as those from the Song period, while Chen was influenced by Western abstract art’s expressive style, hence, the apparent contradictions. But they complemented each other actually, he concluded.

　　He felt that it was like movement and stillness, both natural bodily conditions. So, whether it is between light and darkness, or lightness against weight, he believed that there would be limitless opportunities in their artistic expressions.

　　The young artist was then staging his first solo exhibition with paintings in watercolour, Chinese ink and oil. His name is Li Dezhuang (Lee Teck Suan).

　　1. Growing Up Years

　　Li Dezhuang was a lucky lad. He had the opportunity to come into contact with art since he was in primary school.

　　That was in the early 1960s, just before Singapore’s independence. He was then in Pei Ying Primary School in Yishun. There, a teacher, Mr Tay Chang Hup found him very talented and encouraged him to pursue his interest in art. He would often bring his young student to The Straits Commercial Company, an art shop town, to buy painting equipment and materials such as paper, brushes and palettes.  He also stayed back with the young student after school to impart him with knowledge in art and told him about the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts.

　　After graduating from Upper Thomson Secondary School, Li moved to Chung Cheng High School and attended art classes there. His teachers included Singapore’s pioneer sculptor Yeo Hwee- Bin, a fine art graduate from Shanghai Art Academy and a sculptor inclined towards the abstract expressionism due to  influence  from Western art. His daughter was a professional art designer. Yeo paid special attention on this aspiring young art student. The abstract art concepts, ideas and the use of colours by Yeo and his daughter inspired Li greatly. Later, Yeo even introduced him to two of his good artist friends, pioneer artists Cheong Soo- Pieng and Chen Wen- Hsi, who later gave differing views on the young artist’s works as mentioned above. That helped Li to start thinking, discussing and researching on art’s basic issues from a very young age.

　　When he was still attending pre-university classes at Chung Cheng, Li enrolled himself into Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts to start formal and systematic training in art education, Western as well as Chinese painting in ink. His teachers included Georgette Chen, Lim Yew Kuan, Huang Yiquan, Lai Foong Mei, Lim Mu Hue, See Cheen Tee and Tan Ti Chie among others.

　　The teachers’ creative ideas and different approaches to art he picked up helped to broaden his outlook and understanding. For example, Georgette Chen, who had studied art in France and whose works showed traces of painting techniques of the French modern art masters, was very strict on proportion and distance between objects, as well as the spaces from one  another.  She was meticulous in this respect.

　　So when students in her class were not doing them correctly, she would even take out a ruler to show how far they were wrong. Though sometimes her lines in her works appear thick and strong, but behind them lay her solid foundation in painting skills. All these influenced the young man‘s attitude towards art , allowing him to understand how artists can remain calm even though they may be expressing very strong emotions. In painting, the artist must be like a film director, capable of putting the entire creative process under his or her full control.

　　Three of Li Dezhuang’s abstract works were among the paintings selected for an art exhibition organised by the Singapore Polytechnic Students’ Union which was opened by the late President Yusof Ishak’s wife in 1969. Modern abstract art was still not widely accepted in Singapore at the time.  And the fact that his works, representing those of a student then, were chosen by a respectable panel from the art circle gave him great recognition and encouragement.

　　Li was immersed completely in the art world then, like a sponge absorbing all he could about art, the creative theories and the different painting techniques. At the same time he was creating in earnest works in wood block print, sculpture, oil, watercolour and Chinese ink. He also tried to do representational, semi-abstract and abstract works while searching for the right creative path to follow eventually.

　　Almost every weekend, he was seen in Singapore’s Chinatown and on the banks of Singapore River to experience first-hand, the atmosphere and his personal feelings there. He then expressed them through his own artistic medium and language into works of art. His works of the period formed the theme of his early creations – The Street Scene Series.

　　Occasionally, he would also travel with pioneer artist Foo Chee Shan to the northern part of Malaysia in Ipoh to do sketching of the mountains there. The mountainous terrains, unusual rocks and natural landscapes which he saw set the theme for another group of his works dominated by Mother Nature and the colour blue – The Blue Mountain Series.

　　After completing National Service in the late 1970s, he joined The Port of Singapore Authority. The Singapore port and Singapore River’s century-old bumboat transportation service was then under serious threat from the arrival of containers and affected by  the Government policy to re-allocate the bumboat cargoes  operations  to Pasir Panjing Terminal  to commence with the ten years clean sea campaign . As one of the world’s busiest, the Singapore port’s transformation was about to take place. Being a staff member, he witnessed all the changes, from the large vessels docking in and busy port workers in action to seeing the ships moving in and out, and catching the vast and beautiful view of the sea too. They   were all captured daily in the young artist’s mind, churning out images which eventually took shape on his canvas. They formed what was later known as a body of works with the strongest individual theme in his 1980s – The Water Margin Series.

　　There were still sketches in representational form found in Li’s early Street Scene Series painted in Chinese ink. But he went into semi-abstract soon after that. So whether he was painting the old Chinatown, labourers at work on bumboats on the Singapore River or scenes from the Singapore port, he started to use the dot, line and plane as his basic language in painting. He also preferred to use livelier colours and lines, both the fine and thick ones, to form simple squares or rectangular images, all of them abstract art elements, in his works.  They were filled with life’s rhythm and beauty, showing in the process his desire for change, from representational  to semi abstract and then totally abstract even in the early years.

　　In 1978, his works were selected to participate  in the an exhibition organised by the National Museum Art Gallery . By the 1980s, his works were even more popular and well-received, winning prizes from the Ministry of Culture,   the second prize of the open category and a merit award of the Chinese ink painting category in the UOB Painting of the Year Award.

　　In a review published in the then New Nation Newspaper on August 8 1980, Singapore artist and  art critic Chia Wai- Hon commented that Li’s landscape painting selected for the National Day Art Exhibition that year showed him to be among the few local artists who dared to innovate. Li, Chia said moved from the west to the East, unlike pioneer artist Chen Wen- Hsi who did the opposite.

　　Other achievements included an award for his creativeness from the then Ministry of Communications and Information.  A huge painting showing a scene of Singapore’s  port hung at the waiting area just outside of the Singapore Cabinet Meeting Room at the Istana is from Li’s Water Margin Series.

　　From the early 1980s, Li started to create his black-and-white Zen Bones Series. It was his first foray into abstract art inspired by oriental thoughts. Unwittingly perhaps, he was setting his future artistic direction.

　　All these go to show that since 1980s, Li’s works were already being recognised in Singapore as an up-and-coming artist.

　　2. The Search From East To West

　　Li has always maintained that in art, one must never cease to think, search and pursue new ideas in order to be creative.

　　To gain more experience and broaden his artistic world, he moved out of Singapore to the West to learn about modern art practices and in areas where traditional Chinese painting meets modern art.

　　Between the 1980s and 1990s, he travelled to many places including New York, London, Paris, the Netherlands and Belgium. He also went to many Asian countries and cities such as Thailand, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan and China to learn as he painted at the same time. He never stopped changing his painting styles and methods as he went through mountains and miles and miles of road alone in his artistic journey for the past nearly 20 years. During the period, he absorbed all that he saw and experienced which helped in his creative process, especially in the reflection, training, experimentation, construction and re-construction of his painting concepts and ideas. They resulted in him growing to become a more matured artist.

　　His trip to Europe and the United States in the 1980s, allowed him to experience modern Western art first-hand and provided opportunities for him to meet several important art collectors and curators there. It also helped him to see modern Western art in a different perspective which he found useful when reviewing and evaluating works of his own.

　　This form of learning was certainly a valuable lesson for him. It was also very meaningful to an artist’s growth and future creative development.

　　In 1986, Li’s works were among those selected for an international art salon in the Grand Palais, Paris, an event he was invited back again two years later. The same year, with the introduction by his collectors from Los Angeles, Dr and Mrs Theodore Massel, he visited Mrs Selma Amur Heringman in New York, a former close friend and companion of Pablo Picasso ( 1881-1993) .She later linked him to Mrs Kazuko Hillyer, a renowned curator and director of Hillyer International Inc.

　　Mrs Kazuko was immediately impressed by Li’s works and selected several of them to be among those represented by her art galleries in New York taking part in an international art exhibition in Manhattan. In 1988, she organised a two-man show featuring Li and Shanghai painter Chen Jialeng. It was to be followed by Li’s solo show, but that did not materialise and was cancelled due to the financial crisis which erupted in Europe and the United States in the early 1990s.

　　At the opening of the two-man show, Mrs Kazuko introduced Li to Mr Fong Chow (1923-2012), who was curator and head of Oriental Art Department at the Metropolitan Museum of Art for 27 years. They both became good friends after the meeting.

　　Mr Fong Chow came with an impressive family background. His grandfather Zhou Shou-chen was sent to the United States by the Qing government as among China’s first batch of young Chinese scholars. A hill in Hong Kong is in fact named after him. Mr Fong Chow also set up a Buddhist sculpture gallery at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York where he authenticated works for the museum as well as helping to buy a large number of collectibles, drawings from Japan, Korean porcelain wares and sculptures from India. He was well-trained in art and an art collector himself.

　　He was full of praise for Li’s artistic expression combining his modern abstract art language with the idea of beauty in traditional Chinese art. He accompanied Li on several occasions to visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art where they studied, discussed and explored the paintings they saw, both from the East and West, in particular their compositions and the use of painting materials including oil, watercolour and Chinese ink. Li was greatly inspired and his ideas about art and knowledge deepened as a result. Both men continued to keep in touch for many years, till Mr Fong Chow passed on.

　　In the 1990s, Li’s trip back to Asia enabled him to have the opportunity to relook at the unique traditional Asian arts and see how Asian artists reacted to, and created their works, as a result of the influence from modern Western art at the time.

　　For nearly a century since before and after World War Two, modern Western art came - together with the new art era in Asia - first to Japan, then China and South-east Asia. It created such a great impact  that changes began to take place in a number of Asian countries whose art practices were passed down from generation to generation for at least the last 1,000 years.

　　Between 1993 and 2000, Li went to museums in Japan, which included Fukuoka Art Museum, the national library in Taiwan, the Run Run Shaw Art Gallery and a cultural centre in Hong Kong as well as other institutions in Bangkok, Thailand, where he took part in several group exhibitions and solo shows. Besides showing his works, they were opportunities for him to establish contacts with other Asian artists, look at their works and perhaps learn from them.

　　The importance Japanese artists placed on traditional Chinese ink; the ways with which modern Chinese ink painters from Hong Kong and Taiwan such as Liu Kuo-Sung and Lu Shou-kun (1919-1975) used colours in Chinese ink paintings on rice paper and the “New Ink” concept which emerged since the mid 1920s, reflected the search and attempts by modern artists from the East to embrace Western modern art into their traditional art practices. It also resulted in some of them thinking and evaluating their true cultural identities.

　　All these experiences helped Li, who was then creating ceaselessly, to choose and set a new and clearer direction for himself to work on in the new millennium.

　　3. Going Totally Abstract

　　With the coming of the new millennium, Li’s artistic journey, already two decades long then, received influences from both the East and West. The period saw him creating, experimenting, searching and changing his painting styles relentlessly to sharpen his skills and increase his knowledge of the aesthetics in art. Slowly but surely, the experiences, reflections and the knowledge he gained helped him  form his own unique expression in abstract art – essentially a combination of both the Eastern and Western modern art languages, resulting in sheer beauty.

　　In his artistic journey since the beginning of the new millennium, he chose to stay for a long period in China, working and living in Xiamen and Shanghai. And in 2013, on a coastal town in Zhejiang province he set up a large working studio where he met with some of China’s top artists and art critics as he continued to create and reflect on his art.

　　As a modern Chinese, he agreed with views on “New Ink” in Chinese painting expounded by artists such as Liu Kuo-Sung and Lu Shou-kun. He believed that Chinese ink represents the Chinese and it is their cultural identity. It also shows a strong Chinese character as well as a spiritual symbol in Chinese painting. But Chinese ink painting, he felt, must continue to change and seek abstract expressionist symbols from the West to blend into the landscapes of say, the Song period paintings. In this way, new painting skills can be acquired to establish a brand new tradition in Chinese painting.

　　Essences of a race or nation belong to the world too. They are all part of global culture. Chinese ink and the colours in Western art both share the same basic elements in the construct of beauty. With such an understanding and a modern perspective and view, the potential of traditional Chinese ink painting techniques is limitless, transcending boundaries. It is also international.

　　Equipped with clear thoughts and a purpose-filled direction, Li chose to give up the colourful oil paint and canvas for Chinese ink and rice paper, painting materials which he is more comfortable with. Using them together with acrylic, a Western painting material, he gave his all in creating abstract art in Chinese ink and acrylic since the new millennium.

　　That was a turning point, from the period when he painted in between the semi-abstract and the abstract, to finally painting in the abstract only.

　　Li believed that no matter East or West, many abstract artists’ works would still show traces of their semi-abstract past. And it would need strong determination on their part to rid of existing ideas and thoughts as well as in painting techniques before they could change totally and allow their true feelings to flow freely.

　　That period was the time he created his Abstract Series.

　　In composing his abstract artworks, he was always bold in the use of bright colours as well as dark, black ink, all water-filled which he splashed freely on rice paper. His brush works were well balanced between wet and dry, heavy and light, and they moved with ease on the surface of the paper as he created beauty out of his swift and bold strokes carrying with them ink and colours.

　　On appreciating Chinese landscape painting, the famous Song period master Guo Xi had this theory: Look far into the painting to feel its “power and strength”, look near to savour its “quality and details”.  This is applicable when used for the many works in Li’s Abstract Series since the new millennium. His bold and colourful works looked spectacular from afar indeed, and when examined at close range, the ink and colours he used showed the intricate textures on the surface which were artistically brilliant and aesthetically beautiful.

　　During the period, Li started to be bold with new ideas and “re-created” works from those of his early days. For example, he revisited works such as (365x143cm) and   (138x68cm) from his old Street Scene Series and Festive Series, and re-looked at other works such as  ( 240 x120 cm ) of his Blue Mountains Series and   (365x143cm)from the Water Margin Series. New painting methods were used and artistic language introduced to give a brand new meaning to his works to match the modern times.

　　Though he had chosen to move from the semi-abstract to the abstract in art, he still maintained the same serious attitude and heart in creating his new works. He even gave the title, My Journey, to his art catalogue published then, the same name he used for one of his painting created at that time. This showed that he had tried his utmost to develop his abstract artworks carefully, thoughtfully, confidently and with great determination as well, especially with the language he used in the new works.

　　This period of 10 years in this artistic journey and the works he produced during the period was a big leap forward for him. And whether in reality or as his personal artistic development, it was a new beginning for him in the new millennium.

　　4. Birth of Jing, Shan, Tian

　　The famous ancient poet Su Dongpo had once said that in acquiring knowledge, one must not only ensure its wide scope, but also need to be selective. It was usually after a long period of accumulating knowledge that one could truly understand and savour the best, he explained.

　　Li, who started painting in the 1970s, had for the past 40 years been ceaselessly learning, experimenting and expressing himself quietly, like still water running deep. He was in no hurry and moved one step at a time in his growth as an artist. He realised the importance of such a growing process thoroughly.

　　In the beginning of the second 10 years in the new millennium, the result of his great efforts after years of ploughing finally came into fruition in the form of his Three Representing Jing, Shan and Tian Series.

　　The importance of this new series lay in the artist’s creating a brand new language in his works with a new system of artistic symbols.

　　In both Western and Eastern art, each would have its own traditional method of composition and system of symbols as their artistic language. For example, in Chinese landscape painting, Chinese ink would be the artistic symbol representing it. As a modern artist practising in the present time and space, there would be the need to search for new compositions and system of artistic symbols. Many contemporary Chinese masters such as Qi Bai-shi(1864-1957), Huang Bin-hong(1865-1955), Lin Feng-Mian(1900-1991) and Wu Guan-zhong(1919-2010) had done well in these aspects -   albeit on the surface only - as their works were still considered representational and traditional.

　　Among the more outstanding artists in the modern abstract art world would include Zao WuKi (1921-2013) and Chao Chung-Hsiang(1910-1991).  Zao WuKi’s abstract works expressed the mood and beauty of the xieyi style in Chinese painting right onto the canvas of Western painting. Chao Chung Hsiang, on the other hand, started with the representational painting style of West in his early years before changing to the representational and abstract and then combining a mix of Chinese and Western modern art symbols in his works later. The process was every similar to Li’s art journey from the representational to semi-abstract and then the abstract. Chao also used to paint on Chinese rice paper with Chinese ink and colours, sometimes mixed with acrylic paint, just like Li did.

　　The most obvious difference between Chao Chung Hsiang and Li Dezhuang was the use of traditional Chinese culture elements in their respective works. Chao used the more sophisticated traditional Chinese culture symbols such as those representing the yin and yang, the bagua, concentric circles, and the other auspicious objects such as birds and fishes. But Li chose the  Chinese characters instead, which appear direct and simple. Though they are more primitive in comparison, but they are of greater cultural significance. They are symbols representing the great Chinese civilisation too.

　　Chinese characters originated from the Chinese language itself. Their basic element was pictographs in the beginning but they were soon developed into words or characters to express meanings as well as feelings (xiangyi) and other matters (xiangshi).

　　They are the non-pictograph parts too, all new characters formed with symbols to make many of them look abstract in form. However, whether they are pictographs or characters in abstract, the square frame is the basic structure within which the characters are formed. Such a format or structure gives a sense of beauty and strength.

　　This sense of beauty gives new meanings to life too. Like the aesthetician Zong Baihua had said before, each Chinese character “is no longer a symbol to represent an idea, but each forming a unit as part of life”. And from the Chinese characters to calligraphy, it is a natural progression to express an even deeper meaning about life as an art form, he added.

　　To completely get rid of, knowingly or unknowingly, his realist past and tendency so that he could fully express himself in the abstract, Li chose to use algebra concepts in his works from the beginning.

　　As he was then living and working in China, the centre of Chinese culture, he soon discovered that algebra’s symbols such as the square, circle and triangle are in common with the three Chinese characters namely, Jing (the well), Shan (mountain) and Tian (farmland) in their pictograph forms. Though the three characters are also similar to the three symbols in algebra in their abstract forms, they are representational as well, and full of cultural content and life’s richness, giving limitless potential to artistic expression.

　　In October 2012, Ms Jean Bastien, owner of J. Bastien Art Gallerie, a famous art gallery in Brussels, invited Li to take part in its exhibition titled, “Today’s Contemporary Chinese Art Show”,  which featured four other top Chinese masters, namely Zao WuKi, Zhu Dequn, Gao Xingjian and Zhu Wei.

　　The gallery owner Jean is Zao Wuki’s good friend for many years. She has also been Zao’s agent for some 23 years. The principle she practises as an art dealer is to deal only with works which she likes and then recommend  them to her collectors in Europe. She does not like the avant garde works from the United States, but the works of contemporary Chinese artists, such as the abstracts in oil by Zao WuKi and Zhu Dequn and the latest find in contemporary Chinese ink works. She liked them all. Li was then the only Chinese Singaporean artist she was interested in.

　　During the cocktail party for the art exhibition’s opening, she set up a special wooden rotational picture frame capable of displaying four art pieces on its four sides at the centre of the exhibition area. She used it to exhibit Li’s four paintings for the show. The rotational picture frame was in her personal collection for many years and she would set it up only for very special or important shows.

　　That evening, she also requested Li to talk about his four paintings from his Jing, Shan, Tian Series to all her guests. It was also the first time the series was shown at an international event.

　　What surprised Li that evening was almost all the collectors and art critics present understood the hidden meanings in his new abstract art series. It convinced him that his theory and thoughts behind them and the modern artistic language and symbols he used were common to all, transcending all cultural and geographical boundaries.

　　In the beginning of 2013, Ms Jean Bastien invited Li and his Jing, Shan, Tian Series of works again, this time for the Art Paris Art Fair at the Grand Palais in the French capital. Also a participant, artist Zhu Dequn ( 1920-2014) who could not show up at the opening asked his architect son, Zhu Yifeng, to represent him instead. Those present, including representatives of art museums from all over the world, charity foundations and collectors, showed great interest in Li’s Jing, Shan, Tian Series and its cultural significance.

　　Besides its cultural significance, Li’s “Three Representing Jing, Shan, Tian”, which illustrated his system of abstract art basic symbols, another important point to note was the works also showed his efforts not to  go completely abstract without a basis of an artistic form.

　　Visually, Jing, Shan,Tian is both picturesque and imagery, real and unreal. And when the colourful ink mixed in between the spaces on the paper in an abstract form, their combinations and compositions are limitless. From a deeper sense, the Chinese characters give strength to the abstract composition on the one hand, and contain rich cultural meanings on the other. They show artistic depth, a nation’s spirit and the creative work of a civilisation.

　　An artist’s greatest success lies in his ability to think clearly and explore, ceaselessly, in search of his or her own artistic language or symbols as the means to express ideas and thoughts, thus forming a unique painting style.

　　The success of the Jing, Shan, Tian Series shows how Li could put his heart and mind together to create modern works which transcend both history and culture. It also represents a milestone in his artistic journey.

　　5. Back to Nature

　　In his early days as he left China for Paris, the master Zao Wuki spent a long time searching and learning, before he moved from painting in the representational to the abstract in which he discovered the power for his art.

　　In 1985, when he concluded his studies at his alma mater, Zhejiang Art Academy, he said: “Whether painting in representational or the abstract, both share the same problems such as constraints of space, choice of composition, dealing with light and the application of colours. There are many common issues between them, but the most important is in getting new ideas.”  The true source from which he got his new ideas from was in fact the rich and deep Chinese traditions.

　　He said: “It will be a big waste not to tap on the vast Chinese traditions….What one needs to do is simply  pick up something which he or she likes and close to the individual’s nature or character, digest it and then combine it from what is best from the West (not the rotten ones). And by adding one’s own characteristics into the process, you will soon form your own unique painting style over time.”

　　Although in Li’s artistic journey, he had started with watercolour painting of the West before going into Chinese ink and colours, his artistic form and ideas are still being led largely by modern Western abstract art. Looking back at his representational paintings of the 1970s, and the semi-abstract works in the 1980s, the all abstract ones in the new millennium, and the abstract works with the three Chinese characters he created in the past decade, they all showed his varied skills and styles of painting. And though they showed progression and change, they carried the same consistent theme throughout which perhaps resulted in his very unique artistic style.

　　This theme is filled with emotions from the East.

　　Similar emotions can also be found in his past Street Scene, Festive, Blue Mountain, Water Margin, and Abstract Series and the Jing, Shan, Tian Series more recently. Each piece of painting from these series of works is filled with what look like beautiful and melodious sounds from life’s rhythm in the mixture of colours. They are lively and yet soothing to the soul, and let one’s heart easily skip a beat. The feeling is truly savoury.

　　With a theme so dominated by emotions, ink splashing across the surface of the painting and the use of bright colours, Li’s works are impressive. They do not give the impression that they are rough or strange, but rather are pictures so clear, pure and full of life expressed with his artistic language and symbols. They are also filled with elements of Mother Nature, just like a life’s symphony, ever so inspiring and captivating to mankind.

　　The expression of feelings or emotions has been a special feature in Chinese aesthetics. It is also the essence from Chinese culture. From literature to the fine arts, what is said to be “meanings beyond words”,   “feelings beyond the artwork” and “meanings beyond the artwork”, all refer to this form of artistic expression.

　　This form of expression comes from the human being, who is capable of reacting in any given situation. Its reaction resulting from such encounters can perhaps provide thoughts for studies in aesthetics. This is probably how the Chinese see their expressed emotions as compared with the more individualistic and self- centred Western traditional art movement such as romanticism.

　　Li has chosen to practise his artistic form in Western abstract expressionism under the influence of the modern and electronic age. That was also the direction Zao Wuki and other Chinese who studied art in France took during the 1960s. It was also the way pursued by contemporary Chinese artists since the 1980s. But due to clashes between modernity and present-day Chinese culture as the result of rapid changes in society, there have been concerns because of the many more ways contemporary Chinese artists in China can express themselves through modern abstract art.

　　Even as these concerns are still hanging over the heads of many, other ethnic Chinese artists living overseas like Zao Wuki and his “Western modern expressionism in abstract” or Li Dezhuang and his “Eastern imagery in the abstract” are more serious and pragmatic. They are still filled with emotions, steadfastly continuing in their artistic pursuits with a clear sense of direction.

　　The structure, composition, use of ink and colours in Li’s Eastern imagery abstract artworks dominated by algebra-like symbols, may look accidentally varied both in colours and form, or light and yet tensed and full of life, but they all show the deep thoughts he had put into them before painting.

　　This is especially true of his huge works from the Jing, Shan, Tian Series. Visually, they look full, heavy, stable and rich in content. But hidden in each symbol is that beautiful feeling when man encounters Nature for the first time resulting in the process of cultural discovery thereafter.

　　Each colourful combination, the thick or fine dots, lines or planes forming the entire picture and their interactions within which may be real or unreal, between movement and stillness, all show great beauty and feeling, the mark of tradition from the Chinese nationality. Such is the source of Li’s world of abstract art he has created which displays a strong spirit and so full of life.

　　For thousands of years, Chinese scholars and artists have been pursuing an ideal image of being. The great poet Tao Yan-ming in one of his poems yearned to “go back to Nature”. What it truly means, in philosophical terms, is for man to be raised to a higher plane in order to be united with the heavens as one body. It is also an expression of man’s ultimate desire.

　　Looking back at Li’s artistic journey thus far, one can see he has moved from the representational, to the semi-abstract and then abstract, painting in Chinese ink and colours. Common in his three different painting genres at different times of his artistic life is the creation of beauty out of Nature, an important aspect to associate his works with. His latest Jing, Shan, Tian Series clearly shows his great desire to “go back to Nature” indeed.

　　6. Beautiful Anticipation

　　The well-known Alisan Fine Arts gallery in Hong Kong is famous for promoting young contemporary Chinese artists, both in and outside China, with great potential to be great masters.

　　In 2007, the gallery’s founder Alice King and its director Daphne King Yao invited Li, Gao Xingjian,  and modern Chinese painters Wang Chuan and Yang Xiaojian for a joint exhibition in Hong Kong. It was a great success and all the artists’ works received very positive response as shown by rave reviews which followed.

　　In February 2016, Alisan staged a solo exhibition for Li titled, Beyond Babel. The gallery founder Alice King in her essay titled, Limitless Artistic Vitality, published in the show’s catalogue, recognised Li as an artist “pursuing a type of national cultural profession” and pointed out that in contemporary painting and art of the 21st century, Li Dezhuang “will continue to surprise us, and while retaining tradition, he is also avant-garde”.  She added that his works “are infused with the characteristics of a distinguished artist of his time”.

　　In October 2016, Singapore’s top art gallery owner Chua Soo Bin who is well-known for his promotion of contemporary Chinese art has successfully staged Li’s solo exhibition, Beyond Babel , The Three Representing Jing, Shan, Tian, at Soo Bin Gallery in Singapore after years of preparations.

　　The show is Li’s first solo show in Singapore since his last in 1985. During the past 27 years, his works were shown in New York, London, Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam, Japan, South Korea, Taipei, Hong Kong, Bangkok, Xiamen and many other cities. The show is significant in that it showcases his achievements in art over the past nearly three decades to his viewers back home in Singapore.

　　A former adviser to the New York Metropolitan Art Museum and Professor of Chinese art history at Princeton University Fang Wen said: “Actually, to the Chinese artists, to be modern means to go Western. But now we should say to go modern from our own traditions.”

　　Li’s Beyond Babel , The Three Representing Jing, Shan, Tian, exhibition, is not merely his move from traditions to the modern, but to combine the more original system of Chinese characters as symbols with traditions of the East and modernity of the West into one and create a new big art sphere which transcends all geographical boundaries and languages throughout the world.

　　Back to Nature is Li’s expression, both in spirit and body, of his experience with beauty. His works and he himself, show this. It is a beautiful beginning as well as a beautiful anticipation. ( June 26，2016)

　　Ends.

作者：Toh,Lam,Huat