3812 Gallery artist Raymond Fung's striking vertical ink painting Huang Shan Series (II) has been featured in Museum Rietberg Zürich's latest publication, Longing for Nature: Redefining Landscapes in Chinese Art.
Huang Shan Series No.2, 黃山系列（二）, 1997
Ink and color on paper, 140x35cm
Collected by Museum Rietburg Zurich.
"In 1985, [Fung] established the art society New Ink Movement in Hong Kong in order to promote experimental ink art. He thus continues a local tradition that had its beginnings in the 1960s with the influential Hong Kong artist Liu Shou-Kwan (1919-1975) and his student Wucius Wong (b.1936).
This work was inspired by a trip to the famed Yellow Mountain (Haungshan). It shows a steeply rising mountain massif that, in vertical and horizontal movements, extends throughout the narrow pictorial space in all directions. Natural elements such as peaks, trees, and gorges are only vaguely recognisable. Moved by the wind, changing cloud formations radiate a bright, mystical light. Dramatic transitions from light to dark along with a few blue colour accents evoke an atmospheric natural spectacle.
In his works, Fung explores the abstract dimensions of ink painting. He intentionally eschews the linear brushwork of traditional landscape painting in favour of overlapping areas of colour and ink. Creating random effects by spraying water onto his surfaces, allowing wet colour and ink to flow into one another, or applying ink on crumpled rice paper is an important component of his working method.
According to his own statements, the avowed environmentalist paints imaginary, utopian mountainscapes, which serve him as a spiritual refuge, far away from the noise and squalor of the world. They express his longing for a primal harmony and unity with unspoiled nature."
