Guo Hanshen (Kwok Hon-Sum)

signed with two seals of the artist

Acquired directly from the artist
Lo Shan Tang, London
A Private European Collection

This work is in good condition overall. There are slight horizontal creases at the top of the silk mount due to the hanging scroll format. Hanging scroll.
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Guo Hanshen is recognised for his richly coloured paintings with spiritual motifs.  As a native of Guangdong province, he graduated from the Fine Art Department of National Taiwan Normal University and later studied ink brush painting at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He was a student of Liu Guosong in Taipei and as an artist, his painting took a distinctive turn towards spiritual symbolism. He exhibited extensively in Hong Kong and the United States, where he settled in the 1980s. Using brush and ink and traditional scroll mount formats, he depicts the iconography of Tibet and the thousand Buddhas, yet maintains a grounded sense of simplicity in all of his compositions. 

Wang Kai wrote in the Mustard Seed Garden Manual of Painting that "If you aim to dispense method, learn method. If you aim at facility, work hard. If you aim for simplicity, master complexity." This Daoist philosophy and subsequent interpretations consistently guides the visual analysis of Chinese painting. 

Waves is a masterful painting that compels the viewer to witness the spiritual calm of nature's wonder. His thorough understanding of Daoist and Buddhist texts is illustrated in the uncomplicated composition of a mystical blue ocean lit by the night sky. Composed in a simple geometric pattern and placed in a prominent overhead position, the gold leaf is an attribute to the mandalas of the Buddhist tradition—objects of contemplation.