Qin Feng

executed in 2007

This work is accompanied by a certificate of authenticity issued and signed by the artist

China, Beijing, Beijing Museum of Contemporary Art, Qin Feng: To Bada Shanren, 26 April - 11 September, 2008, pp. 162-163
United Kingdom, London, Saatchi Gallery, Ink: The Art of China, 19 June - 5 July, 2012, p. 97

Kuo, Jason C., Chinese Ink Painting Now, Distributed Art Publishers, New York, USA; Timezone 8, Hong Kong, China, 2010, p.120

Overall in very good condition. Framed size: 311 x 135 cm; 122 1/2 x 53 1/8 in.
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Qin Feng's boldly gestural compositions are a fusion of symbols that beautifully transcribe the artist's personal journey: He spent his youth as a shepherd on the plains of Xinjiang where local culture is largely influenced by Islamic tradition but governed by modern China. After graduating from the Shandong Institute of Art, he was invited to Germany in 1995 as a curator and artist in residence, complementing his Eastern art training with concepts in Western art history. Qin Feng's definite, bold brushwork belies the complexity of identity and power in contemporary society today. Qin Feng believes that "modern civilization will not escape its predecessors' fate." Having endured various challenges during his childhood in China, Qin Feng manifests a remarkably exuberant, yet viscerally powerful, attitude towards life in his art—one that also transcends national boundaries and emphasizes a common spirit of expression.

The monumental scale of Qin Feng's paintings engage the viewer with their physical presence, as a sober reminder of one's own vulnerability; The exploration of ink and coffee on paper reveal a balance between positive and negative space, an allusion to the harmony between man and nature. Each contrast in Qin Feng's works is a constant challenge and fusion of symbols that uniquely identify his art. 

 

Bold brushstrokes lyrically combine the impulses of action-painting with the tradition of Chinese calligraphy, a symbolic fusion of East and West. Fan Di'an, President of the Central Academy of Art, Beijing, remarks "Qin Feng is also an artist with significant scope of artistic vision, he excels at using spatial environment, to form the creativity of his holistic view. As such, his works are based in the language of ink, but it also incorporates various types of materials and experiments with many types of media. He is exceptional at basing his presentation through utilizing the unique structure of the space and environment at each exhibition site to form holistic expression through diversified forms of works. Thus rather than saying one enters into his works, it is more accurate to say that it will take people into a different space form by a new language."

Born in Xinjiang Province, Qin Feng studied mural painting at the Shandong University of Art and Design in the early 1980s before moving to Berlin in 1996 and later the U.S. He has synthesized Western modernism and the Chinese ink-painting tradition into a body of work of immediate gestural power. His work is in prominent museums and collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Guggenheim, New York, Los Angeles Museum of Modern Art, Ford Foundation, Annie Wong Foundation, and the National Arts Foundation, Paris. He has exhibited extensively throughout the world at institutions including the Singapore National Museum of Art, The Israel Museum, Jerusalem, the Museum of Fine Art, Boston, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.