Lotus in Haze

Lotus is the symbol of purity, delicacy and elegance in Chinese culture. Its beauty has been a common subject in traditional Chinese paintings, from the expressive and freehand style of Ming dynasty master Xu Wei and the daring and idiosyncratic compositions of Bada Shanren from the Qing dynasty, to the two most influential modern Chinese painters Qi Baishi and Zhang Daqian, who respectively rendered red flower with ink leaves and coloured lotus with splashed ink. Unlike these masterpieces of the noble imagery of lotus, Huang Guanyu’s lotuses are dark and withering, bleak and disarranged. There is lotus in the pond, but no flower can be seen. Huang Guanyu explained, “To me, it is lotus and it is not lotus. There are many people who paint lotus precisely like a lotus, and there are even more who depict lotus that does not look like one at all, yet there are only a few who are in between, it is a new dimension, my own artistic creation.”