David Diao | Hisao Chin | Xiaobai Su | Wang Huaiqing Selected Prints Collection

11/19/2021-2/20/2022

YiCOLLECTA launched the works of four abstract masters, namely David Diao, Hsiao Chin, Su Xiao Bai, and Wang Huai-Qing, bringing you a wonderful abstract visual experience.

David Diao
David Diao is one of the few important Chinese artists in the Western art circle. With his symbolic vocabulary of painting, he changed the way of seeing abstract forms; the works show reflections on their own culture, which is regarded as a nutrient as a whole creation. The context supports the narrative of his works. The pictorial conceptual painting shows scrutiny of art history and self-identification.

DIAO is deeply influenced by New York’s abstract painting trend in the 1960s. At the beginning of his creation, he mostly explored the possibility of form composition. At that time, his abstract paintings were already attracting attention in the West. DIAO was one of the very few Chinese artists have won recognition in the West. In 1978, his work appeared on the cover of "Artforum" magazine. During the 1960s and 1970s, his works belonged to geometric abstract art. On the basis of traditional complex theories, he strived to make breakthroughs, examining and changing the established way of seeing through the exploration of forms. However, he gradually learned that the pure form of breakthroughs could no longer satisfy his enthusiasm for painting. The alienation caused by purely depicting forms prevented his works from integrating into his exploration of reality and history.

In the late 70s, DIAO halted painting, he went to Paris to find inspiration for his creation again. He devoted a high degree of interest to abstract painting developed in modernism, carefully combing its context and studying it in-depth. After some adjustments and research, he broke the rigidity of formalism in the past abstract paintings, and integrated art history, linguistics, and philosophical thinking into his creative context. Text, data, and images became elements in his works. DIAO returned to New York art scene with the work Glissement in 1984, DIAO’s work draws on the images in the works of many famous modernist painting masters such as Ad Reinhardt, Jackson Pollock, Kasimir Malevich, and Barnett Newman. He uses literature as a reference point to criticize and analyze the overall art market and art history. It is also a tribute to the career of being an artist.

DIAO’s creative career is devoted to abstract art. In late 1980s when postcolonial issues became ever more heated, He was able to analyze the subjectivity of being a Chinese artist as his own identity. In the series about Da Hen Li and Hong Kong, he re-used his hometown and the image of Bruce LEE. The creation form, re-examine the construction process of self-awareness and culture. Under the elite structure of Western culture, the artist did not obey the mainstream mechanism to have a one-sided impression of the Chinese and created his unique vocabulary of painting, which made him important in the Western art scene. In 2014, the University of Strasbourg held a symposium related to his work, and his work influenced the publication of papers by art critics and historians. After receiving the Grants to Artists (Visual Arts) of Foundation for Contemporary Arts, New York. In 2015, the “David Diao” was held at the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art (UCCA) in Beijing in the same year.

David Diao born in Chengdu, China in 1943, and currently lives and works in New York. He moved to Hong Kong in 1949 and moved from Hong Kong to settle in New York in 1955. In 1973, he won the Guggenheim Fellowship (John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation). In 2015, the solo exhibition “David Diao” was held at the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art (UCCA) in Beijing in the same year. DIAO's exhibition experience spans major galleries and art museums in Europe, America, and Asia. His works are collected in MoMA, Whitney Museum of American Art, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA), Fonds régional d’art contemporain (FRAC) (France), M+ Collection(Hong Kong), Taipei Fine Arts Museum.

Hsiao Chin
Hsiao Chin was among the generation of artists who first promoted the avant-garde art movement in China in the 1950s. He was also the first artist in Europe dedicated to the communication of Eastern and Western art. Using the east and the west of creation, unique philosophy and abstract style of painting appear. Hsiao clearly expresses his quest and curiosity about the universe and life. Hsiao's creation blends Eastern and Western cultures to form a unique philosophical abstract painting, which uses the painting technique of facing up to his inner feelings to practice his spirituality.

To Hsiao, discovering the potential of the mental and realizing the truth of the unity of nature and man are the reasons for his art. He has a high degree of interest in Zen and Taoist Philosophy, from which he draws the nutrients of traditional Chinese culture, and his research and perception of various Eastern philosophies enable him to grasp the concepts of emptiness and reality, yin and yang, and put them on a huge canvas Master the space freely and keep everything in the right balance. As a member of ‘Eastern Painting Group’, he promoted the Punto International Art Movement when he stayed in Milan that see Eastern philosophy ‘Mindfulness’ as its purpose. His ideas came from the use of color, circular swirl, and arrow-like symmetry of chakras.

Hsiao Chin born in Shanghai in 1935, he came to Taiwan with his parents in 1949. In 1955, he co-founded the "Dongfang Group" with artists known as the "Eight Horses" in the art scene. He went to Spain in 1956, then moved to Italy and New York for creating and teaching. After returning to Taiwan, he taught at Tainan College of the Arts (now Tainan National University of the Arts). He retired from the school in 2005 and was appointed honorary professor. In the same year, he was conferred the honorable title of "Knight of Italian Solidarity Star" by the Italian President. Hsiao's works have been exhibited in major art museums around the world: MoMA, The Met, Schlossmuseum Darmstadt, Museum Waterland, National Art Museum of China, Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts.

Xiaobai Su
Su received a solid traditional art training in his early artistic career. At that time, his painting style tended to be Realism. Later, he went to the Düsseldorf Art Academy in Germany for further study. In addition to facing the differences in foreign countries, Su was surprised by the artistic genres and styles he encountered during his stay in Germany. Over the past 20 years staying in Germany, after experienced various artistic genres and art movements such as abstract expressionism, surrealism, and pop art, Su’s artistic style has gradually evolved from socialist realism, transforming towards a more ultimate and introverted artistic context through his own internalization and artistic practice. From there, Su has successfully developed his own unique abstract symbols and painting vocabulary.

Su using oriental lacquer, a traditional medium with a long history as the main medium of creations, and then projected into his creations through his own overseas experience. Therefore, his works have the appearance of minimalism or abstract expression, but the direction of his works is more derived from Eastern aesthetics and philosophy.

Xiaobai Su was born in Wuhan in 1949. He enrolled in the China Central Academy of Fine Arts to study the traditional techniques of oil painting in 1984. In 1987, he received a scholarship from the North Rhine-Westphalia Culture and Art Scholarship in Germany for further study in Germany and returned to China in 2003.

Currently, he lives and works in Shanghai and Dusseldorf, Germany. Su has hosted numerous important international exhibitions that include " Jing Shen: The Act of Painting in Contemporary China", "Where Does It All Begin? Contemporary Abstract Art in Asia and the West" and others. His works have also been collected by the Pinakothek der Moderne and State Second Television-ZDF, Mainz, Langen Foundation, Ostasien Museum, National Art Museum of China, Hubei Art Museum, EFG Bank in Singapore, and The Presidential Palace in Taiwan.

Wang Huaiqing
Since the 1980s, Wang Huaiqing’s work has expressed his nostalgia for Chinese traditional cultures. Wang used to paint a large number of propaganda posters during the Cultural Revolution, so he was sent to the rural labor reform in Hebei. After graduating from university, he was appointed as a stage art designer for the People's Liberation Army. These memories became important fragments in his mind. At the same time, he focuses on the study of traditional Chinese woodware, and he is used to dismantling and reconstructing the woodwork to form his unique creative characteristics.

In 1979, he obtained a master's degree from the Graduate School of Central Academy of Fine Arts and Crafts and followed masters such as Chang Ting, Wu Guanzhong, Zhu Danian, Yuan Yunfu. Among them, Wu Guanzhong was also a teacher and friend to him, and he had a profound influence on Wang. One time when he visited Lu Xun’s hometown, he was deeply attracted by the white walls and black tiles of Jiangnan architecture and local furniture. He began to look for aesthetics in traditional Chinese architecture. A few years later, he began to develop overseas and went to the United States to participate in exhibitions and exhibitions. In 1998, he participated in the Guggenheim Museum-Chinese Art 5000 Exhibition in New York.

After returning to Beijing from the United States, he became more focused on traditional things. He used his own dismantling and re-reconstruction techniques to disassemble and integrate traditional furniture into his own creations. This is nothing more than his impact on traditional and Western life. For him, the creative media comes from the traditional things in his hometown, but the presentation style is more inclined to the modern West.

*Because some of the works are available, it will take 2-3 weeks for delivery, please wait patiently.
*Hsiao Chin's prints must be reserved in advance.
*The prints are not framed.

End of Exhibition

Curator: YiCOLLECTA