Liang Quan

signed LIANG QUAN, dated 2007 in Chinese in pencil, and with one seal of the artist

Rui Zulueta Collection

Kuo, Jason C., Chinese Ink Painting Now, Distributed Art Publishers, New York, USA; Timezone 8, Hong Kong, China, 2010, p.142

Overall in very good condition. Framed size: 114 x 144 cm; 44 7/8 x 56 5/8 in.
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Liang Quan is recognized as a pioneer of abstract art and belongs to the first generation of Chinese artists who studied abroad after the 'reformation in China'. His experience studying at the San Francisco Art Institute left an indelible impression when he returned to China as a professor of printmaking at the National Art Academy in Hangzhou. Although his traditional literati training provided a framework for using the tools of brush and ink on paper, Liang Quan's cutting and pasting of xuan paper, and his mixing of ink with acrylic, tea and watercolor, deviates completely from formal composition—allowing the viewer to focus on the spirit of the material. The essence of the medium is evoked through colors, lines, and textures, absent of the direct hand of the artist.

Liang Quan delights audiences with a marriage of the aesthetics of abstract art with the philosophy of traditional Chinese culture. Though it is tempting to liken his work to Western masters such as Cy Twombly or Agnes Martin, Liang Quan roots his oeuvre within the Chinese ink tradition, commenting, "Some (Chinese) artists use brushwork to express themselves, others use ink I, however, use paper as the foundation of my expression."  For Liang Quan, the line of ink is not created by the brush, but instead through the edges of paper created through collage. The lines of torn paper mixed with colored accents and shapes articulate the rhythm of a landscape—like the score of a musical symphony, visually articulated line-by-line, phrase-by-phrase.

 "The White Horse Dialogue"

Question: Can it be that a white horse is not a horse? Advocate: It can.
Objector: How?

Advocate: "Horse" is that by means of which one names the shape. "White" is that by means of which one names the color. What names the color is not what names the shape. Hence, I say that a white horse is not a horse.

Objector: If there are white horses, one cannot say that there are no horses. If one cannot say that there are no horses, doesn't that mean that there are horses? For there to be white horses is for there to be horses. How could it be that the white ones are not horses?

Advocate: If one wants a horse, that extends to a yellow or black horse. But if one wants a white horse, that does not extend to a yellow or black horse. Suppose that a white horse were a horse. Then what one wants [in the two cases] would be the same. If what one wants were the same, then a white [horse] would not differ from a horse. If what one wants does not differ, then how is it that a yellow or black horse is sometimes acceptable and sometimes unacceptable? It is clear that acceptable and unacceptable are mutually contrary. Hence, yellow and black horses are the same [in that, if there are yellow or black horses], one can respond that there are horses, but one cannot respond that there are white horses. Thus, it is evident that a white horse is not a horse.¹

¹The White Horse Dialogue (Baima lun), from Master Gongsun Long (Gongsun Long zi), translation by Bryan Van Norden, in "On the White Horse," in Readings in Classical Chinese Philosophy, ed. P.J. Ivanhoe and Bryan W. Van Norden (Indianapolis: Hackett, 2005), pp. 364–65