Li Junyi (Lee Chun-Yi)

signed LI CHUNYI and dated 2013

Private Asian Collection

Lee Chun-Yi: Ink Art, Mingshan Art, Taipei, 2013, pp. 17-18
Lee Chun-Yi, An Artistic Exploration of Postcolonialism: The Creative Concept of Lee Chun-Yi's Modern Ink Painting, YuanLiu, Taipei, 2015, cover & pp. 90-91

Overall in good condition
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Balanced between tradition and contemporaneity, Shan Shui, Shan Sui (Landscape, Fragments) demonstrates how the past can be mined as a source of artistic creativity and political satire. At a distance, the image is a heroic vision of a timeless archetypal landscape reminiscent of traditional Chinese paintings that symbolize philosophical truth. Upon closer inspection, one realizes that the gracefulness, and otherworldly perfection of a landscape are not created by brushstrokes but a stunningly meticulous grid-like structure. Eschewing the brush, Lee Chun-yi creates monumental yet intricately pixelated ink paintings produced by repeatedly imprinting small cubic stamps made of soft wood or cork. Lee’s process is inspired by engraved stone steles from the Northern Wei period and the stamps resemble seals affixed to Chinese paintings or carved woodblocks used in traditional printmaking.

A student and mentee of the renowned Taiwan-based painter Liu Guosong, Lee Chun-yi cultivates a daringly intellectual and contemporary vision for traditional painting. As a native of Taiwan and student in Hong Kong following the years of cultural unrest in mainland China, Lee positions his works between history and the current situation between the straits. The earliest example of this painting series began in 1988 with a work titled Wan Sui, Wan Shui, Wan Wan Sui, where the play on words explicitly points to political satire on imperial China. (The slogan should read as “Ten Thousand Years, Long Live the Emperor”, and is instead written as “Ten Thousand Years, Ten Thousand Sleeps, Forever Broken.” By depicting the landscape as a fragmented whole, Lee illustrates an interpretation of nationalism. While the landscape acts as a symbol of history and cultural identity, Lee breaksdown the whole into a fragmented puzzle and a state of confusion. Whereas the ink painting tradition celebrates the meticulous attention to the brush as an expression of a higher purpose, which reflects a Neo-Confucian rationalist approach to learning, Lee uses a standardized process to divert this objective investigation of things towards questioning the current situation. Lee’s art, masterfully executed and thoughtfully conceived, is thus both nostalgic and revolutionary, forging an entirely unique and contemporary visual language even while evoking the past.