• Fu Qiumeng Fine Art presents Contemplation / Meditation: Concepts and Cultures, co-curated by Fu Qiumeng and Jeffrey Wechsler, exploring how... Fu Qiumeng Fine Art presents Contemplation / Meditation: Concepts and Cultures, co-curated by Fu Qiumeng and Jeffrey Wechsler, exploring how... Fu Qiumeng Fine Art presents Contemplation / Meditation: Concepts and Cultures, co-curated by Fu Qiumeng and Jeffrey Wechsler, exploring how... Fu Qiumeng Fine Art presents Contemplation / Meditation: Concepts and Cultures, co-curated by Fu Qiumeng and Jeffrey Wechsler, exploring how... Fu Qiumeng Fine Art presents Contemplation / Meditation: Concepts and Cultures, co-curated by Fu Qiumeng and Jeffrey Wechsler, exploring how... Fu Qiumeng Fine Art presents Contemplation / Meditation: Concepts and Cultures, co-curated by Fu Qiumeng and Jeffrey Wechsler, exploring how... Fu Qiumeng Fine Art presents Contemplation / Meditation: Concepts and Cultures, co-curated by Fu Qiumeng and Jeffrey Wechsler, exploring how... Fu Qiumeng Fine Art presents Contemplation / Meditation: Concepts and Cultures, co-curated by Fu Qiumeng and Jeffrey Wechsler, exploring how... Fu Qiumeng Fine Art presents Contemplation / Meditation: Concepts and Cultures, co-curated by Fu Qiumeng and Jeffrey Wechsler, exploring how... Fu Qiumeng Fine Art presents Contemplation / Meditation: Concepts and Cultures, co-curated by Fu Qiumeng and Jeffrey Wechsler, exploring how...

    Fu Qiumeng Fine Art presents Contemplation / Meditation: Concepts and Cultures, co-curated by Fu Qiumeng and Jeffrey Wechsler, exploring how Eastern and Western artists have visualized inner stillness, reflection, and heightened awareness. Bringing historical and contemporary works into dialogue, the exhibition considers art as a vehicle for spiritual presence. 

     

    In classical Chinese thought, the Dao is not merely a metaphysical principle but a lived path—one that leads toward inner illumination and alignment with cosmic order. Confucian philosophy provided the ethical architecture for this path. As stated at the opening of The Great Learning (Daxue) in the Book of Rites:

  • “The Way of Great Learning lies in manifesting luminous virtue, in renewing the people, and in resting in the highest good. Only after one knows where to rest can one attain steadiness; with steadiness comes tranquility; with tranquility comes serenity; with serenity comes reflective clarity; and through such reflection, fulfillment is achieved.”

    This passage outlines not merely a sequence of moral cultivation but an inward trajectory of awareness in which ethical practice and cosmic attunement are inseparable. It traces a movement from steadiness to tranquility, from serenity to lucid reflection—a gradual interior clarification through which the individual resonates with Heaven and Earth and returns to original alignment. In this sense, contemplation is not withdrawal from the world, but disciplined presence within it.

    Parallel yet distinct currents developed in Daoist and Buddhist traditions. Here, transformation unfolds through the suspension of conceptual distinctions and the quieting of ego-centered perception. Zhuangzi’s notions of zuowang (“sitting in forgetfulness”) and xinzhai (“fasting of the mind”) call for relinquishing bodily and intellectual constraints so that the mind may merge with the spontaneous flow of the Dao. Zen Buddhism, through its injunction to abandon dualistic thinking—“Do not think of good; do not think of evil”—seeks direct awakening to one’s inherent nature. Where Confucian contemplation advances through gradual clarification, Daoist and Zen practices proceed through radical emptying. Yet both converge in a shared principle: the decentering of the self. Artistic creation, in this context, emerges not as assertion but as attunement—an openness through which vitality or luminous emptiness may take form.

     

    Within the philosophical horizon of classical Chinese literati painting, artists demonstrated how brush, ink, and compositional space could embody inner cultivation through distinct approaches. Qian Du (钱杜，1764–1844), following the lost Yuan masterpiece Dragon Gate: The Solitary Monk by Ni Zan (倪瓚, 1301–1374), depicts a meditative monk immersed in the forest, emphasizing subtle elegance and literati refinement. In contrast, Gao Qipei (高其佩，1660–1734) transforms similar spiritual concepts into bold, tactile gestures in his finger paintings, realizing the immediacy and spontaneity central to Zen practice.

     

  • Painted in 1840, Qian Du’s hanging scroll Monk of Longmen serves as a profound visual meditation on the inner trajectories of classical Chinese thought. By depicting a solitary figure immersed in a tranquil, desolate landscape, the work gracefully evokes the Daoist and Zen ideals of zuowang (sitting in forgetfulness) and the quieting of ego-centered perception. Yet, this inward journey is not merely illustrated by the subject matter; it is deeply woven into the very rhythm of the artist's brushwork.

     

    Qian Du decenters his own artistic ego by transcending rigid genealogical boundaries of Northern and Southern schools, and masterfully harmonizes the dynamic structural depth and light-dark contrasts of Dong Qichang's Orthodox style with the meticulous, serene elegance of the Wen School. Through this radical stylistic synthesis, Qian Du achieves a gradual interior clarification on the silk. The resulting landscape—balancing solid, undulating forms with luminous emptiness—serves not merely as a physical space, but as a visual manifestation of inner illumination and perfect alignment with the cosmic order.

  • The subject of Monk of Longmen (龍門僧) ultimately derives from a now-lost composition by the Yuan dynasty master Ni Zan...
    Qian Du 錢杜 1764-1844
    Monk of Dragon Gate 龍門僧圖, 1840
    signed Qian Du, and Du, dated gengzi (1840), with three seals of the artist, qian du, yun dong guan, shu mei
    ink on paper, hanging scroll
    30 1/2 x 13 in; 77.5 x 33 cm

    The subject of Monk of Longmen (龍門僧) ultimately derives from a now-lost composition by the Yuan dynasty master Ni Zan (倪瓚, 1301–1374) titled Dragon Gate: The Solitary Monk (《龍門獨步圖》). The painting was well known in later centuries and was recorded in the imperial painting compendium Peiwenzhai huapu (《佩文齋畫譜》) compiled under the Kangxi emperor. The Qianlong emperor also composed a poem in praise of the work. Although the original painting has not survived, it was seen and copied by later artists, including the Ming–Qing painter Zha Shibiao (查士標, 1615-1698), who produced his own interpretation after the composition.

     

    According to Qian Du’s inscription, after Ni Zan’s original there were further versions by Xu Ben (徐賁, 1335-after 1393) and Zhao Yuan (趙原, active 1350-1375). The present painting by Qian Du follows Zhao Yuan’s interpretation of the subject. Qian Du notes that his approach avoids the use of conventional “moss-dot” texturing, only coaxing out the cool elegance and antique refinement among the grasses, an effect he believed captured the spirit of the earlier masters.

     

    Qian Du also inscribed a poem responding to a verse by Zhao Yuan, whose evocation of the Longmen landscape he admired for its quiet elegance:

     

    After the autumn rain clears at Longmen,

    fragrant jade-like grasses stretch to the horizon.

    The Northern Dipper hangs upon the blue cliff;

    in the Heavenly Pool white lotuses open.

     

    The Daoist, long entered into meditation,

    sits cross-legged, his right shoulder bare.

    He hastens into the bitter-bamboo grove,

    cupping his hands to draw cinnabar spring water.

     

    Pine blossoms fall into the wind-stove;

    the stone kettle sounds cool and clear.

    I wish to learn the art of refining the body,

    like the cicada casting off its shell, to pursue the flying immortals.

     

    Through this inscription and poetic response, the present work situates itself within a lineage tracing back to Ni Zan’s celebrated but lost composition, demonstrating how later literati painters continued to reinterpret and transmit revered models across the centuries.

  • Gao Qipei (高其佩, 1660–1734), a pioneering painter of the early Qing dynasty, is celebrated as the foremost master of Chinese...
    Gao Qipei 高其佩 1660-1734
    Finger Painting: Boating by a Waterfall 指畫懸崖聽瀑
    signed Qipei zhihua, with one seal of the artist, pei
    ink on paper, hanging scroll
    41 3/4 x 15 in; 106 x 38 cm

    Gao Qipei (高其佩, 1660–1734), a pioneering painter of the early Qing dynasty, is celebrated as the foremost master of Chinese finger painting (指畫). Born into a Manchu family serving the imperial government, Gao pursued painting alongside his official duties, transforming a previously minor practice into a fully developed artistic language. Using fingers, fingernails, and the palm in place of the brush, he created bold textures, flowing washes, and expressive structural lines. The technique became closely associated with the Gao family, whose members continued to practice and transmit it, and was later codified in the Zhitou huashuo (《指頭畫說》), Treatise on Finger Painting), compiled in 1771 by his grandson Gao Bing (高秉). This work preserved the theory and techniques of finger painting, ensuring the family’s artistic legacy.

     

    Gao’s finger painting exemplifies the integration of bodily gesture, improvisation, and calligraphic sensibility, offering a dynamic alternative to brush-based practice. Its immediacy and spontaneity align with Zen (禪) principles, emphasizing direct perception and the inseparability of body, mind, and mark-making. Each sweeping gesture records both the artist’s mental and physical state, transforming painting into a meditative, kinesthetic practice. From a global perspective, his method resonates with modern explorations of gesture and physicality, such as Abstract Expressionism, where process, rhythm, and the body itself become central to artistic meaning. Through his innovative approach, Gao Qipei elevated finger painting from novelty to a respected form of literati expression, expanding the expressive possibilities of ink and securing its enduring place in the history of Chinese art.

  • Parallel sensibilities emerged in Western art when artists sought to move beyond representation toward inward modes of expression. Because classical Chinese painting privileges the transmission of energy and philosophical insight over descriptive imitation, its visual logic resonates with Western movements ranging from Symbolism and Suprematism to Transcendentalism and twentieth-century abstraction. Even within the forceful gestures of American Abstract Expressionism, certain artists cultivated quieter registers: muted color fields, rhythmic structures, and atmospheric depth created spaces of sustained attention rather than dramatic spectacle. In these contexts, abstraction functions less as rupture than as concentration.

     

    In dialogue with these traditions, the exhibition presents mid-twentieth-century American artists who approached painting as contemplative practice. Figures such as Richard Pousette-Dart, Rollin Crampton, and Sal Sirugo developed works defined by luminous circular forms, subtle tonal harmonies, and immersive spatial atmospheres. Their canvases invite inward resonance, transforming the act of viewing into an experience of heightened awareness.

  • RICHARD POUSETTE-DART, A Dimension So Blue, 1988–90, Graphite gouache, and ink on paper, 29 x 41 in; 73.7 x 104.1 cm
    Courtesy of The Richard Pousette-Dart Foundation
  • Richard Pousette-Dart wrote: “Art reveals the significant life, beauty of all forms – it uplifts, transforms it into the exalted...
    Richard Pousette-Dart
    Circle of Dark Light, A, 1978
    Acrylic and graphite on paper
    22 1/2 x 30 1/4 in; 57.1 x 76.8 cm

    Courtesy of The Richard Pousette-Dart Foundation and Pace Gallery

    Richard Pousette-Dart wrote: “Art reveals the significant life, beauty of all forms – it uplifts, transforms it into the exalted realm of reality wherein its pure contemplative poetic being takes place -- wherein art’s transcendental language of form, spirit, harmony means one universal eternal presence.”  Among his peers in the Abstract Expressionist movement, he was rather unique in his strong and consistent linking of art with spiritual and mystical concepts.  This interest was intense and of a vast latitude; he read religious and philosophical sources as varied as Lao-tzu, the Upanishads, Christian and Hebrew mystics, and Richard Maurice Bucke’s 1901 Cosmic Consciousness.  The artist noted that, “Art is always deeper than appearance and must be delved for”.  Within each artwork is “some strange inner kernel which cannot be reached with explanations, clarifications, examinations, or definitions….  [The kernel] makes art mystical, unknown, real, and experienceable.”

     

    Pousette-Dart’s art has offered allusions to, and abstracted versions of, spiritual and contemplative symbols from many civilizations, from Native American, to India, to China.  Images specific to certain philosophical traditions, such as the yin-yang, may appear in his work, as well as more universally significant forms, such as spirals or circles.  A large number of his works focus on a single circle, sometimes activated by linear details or intense color, or at a different extreme, simply a black circular presence: this latter type may be meditative in effect, drawing the viewer in, rather like an artistic black hole, presenting a reductive yet compelling image.  Occasionally, the circle is compressed down nearly to a point, encouraging concentration of vision and mind onto a small entity – perhaps the “kernel” the artist spoke about.  Conversely, Pousette-Dart has created some canvasses of enormous width, strewn with star-like bursts, scattered across a sweeping, multicolored space glistening with bright hues; these seem to invoke the heavens as an impetus to meditate on matters on a universal scale.

  • Within much of the writing about American Abstract Expressionism, the role of the natural world is often seen as unimportant...
    Rollin Crampton
    Dark Harbor, circa late 1950s
    Oil on canvas
    26 1/2 x 31 1/2 in; 67.3 x 80 cm

    Within much of the writing about American Abstract Expressionism, the role of the natural world is often seen as unimportant -- something to be avoided, even superseded in the quest for pure, self-generated non-objective painting.  When asked about the role of nature in his art, Jackson Pollock notably declared, “I am nature”.  The notion of placing oneself as equal to nature, or even considering nature to be unnecessary in art is, to the East Asian mind, essentially an unthinkable attitude. American Abstract Expressionists who dared to include nature as a source for their art were often regarded as retrograde, and insufficient in their dedication to abstraction.  Nevertheless, several Abstract Expressionists welcomed nature into their work, and it is not surprising that some of them expressed significant links to East Asian art, aesthetics and philosophy.  One of the key figures in this regard is Rollin Crampton.

     

    In his contemplative view of nature as a world of interpenetrating forms and energies, Crampton acknowledged his vital links to Eastern art and religion.  Concerning his conception of art, Crampton said it was based “essentially [on] an Oriental philosophy, especially Zen,” and that he was “very much interested in Buddhism [as] a guiding principle.”  He respected Buddhism’s “regard for nature and the sacredness of life,” and was attracted to Zen’s search for “essences,” for “getting down to a certain simplicity.”

      

    Quite forthrightly, Crampton embraced such essences and simplicity.  Many of Crampton’s paintings are nearly monochrome, presenting subtly nuanced surfaces of off-whites, grays, or black.  Indeed, certain dark gray and black works may offer surfaces so barely inflected that they can initially appear as dense, homogenous voids.  Nevertheless, many of these works have a specific basis in nature – the sea.  Here, a vast, calm expanse may blend with the sky (especially at late dusk or night) to create a natural apparent emptiness or undefinable space that invites the eye and mind to contemplate upon what may lie within the indistinct, and to meditate upon the infinite.

  • Sal Sirugo (1920-2013) was creating work by the late 1940s that represented an early and individualistic approach to the burgeoning style of Abstract Expressionism.  While some of his imagery can be considered a rather early form of so-called field painting, comprising generally homogenous areas of linear elements or colors (for example, Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko), Sirugo did not see fit to constrain himself with a signature style.  He produced several distinctive visual categories: Abstractions, Landscapes, Heads, and Eyes: the latter group, containing striking variations on roughly circular themes, are emphasized in this exhibition.

     

    In 1953, Sirugo visited a collection of Chinese paintings in Boston.  This contact with Chinese imagery and technique produced fundamental shifts in Sirugo’s methodology and conception of painting.  He began working with ink and paper, noting the interplay of “the controlled and accidental fluidity of the medium” and how “the spontaneity of the ink flows ... evolve into imaginary landscapes.”  Importantly, for the rest of his career, his palette was generally restricted to black and white, revealing their pictorial and emotional potential.  Also, of particular significance to his output, Sirugo ignored the tendency of Abstract Expressionist painters to produce extremely large works.  Instead, the typical dimensions of his paintings are remarkably modest; many are less than ten inches on each side, with some merely an inch and a half.  However, Sirugo recognized the concentrated power of the small image that was also appreciated in Chinese art.  He said, “There is a 17thcentury album of Chinese paintings titled “Within Small See Large”.  This is how I view my work.”

     

    The Eyes created by Sirugo apply the wandering suffusions of Chinese water-based ink toward inventive variations suggesting the human visual organ.  The popular phrase “The eye is the window to the soul” comes to mind when viewers confront these works “eye to eye”.  The circular motif that is so prevalent in meditative symbolic formats, such as the mandala or yin-yang, appropriately evokes a sense of imprecise yet deep thought, as one contemplates the inner – or wider – meaning of each of Sirugo’s Eyes. 

  • Contemporary contributors extend this cross-cultural conversation. Arnold Chang, Michael Cherney, and Brandon Sadler engage East Asian materials, aesthetics, and philosophical frameworks in distinct ways. Their works do not replicate historical models but reactivate them, translating brush discipline, spatial openness, and calligraphic gesture into contemporary visual vocabularies. Alongside them, artists including C. C. Wang, Hisao Hanafusa, Liang Quan, Wang Mansheng, Zhang Xiaoli, Fung Ming Chip, and Luo Min represent modern and diasporic continuities of East Asian practice. Across these diverse trajectories, disciplined mark-making and intentional emptiness articulate reflection and presence as embodied experience.

  • This work belongs to the abstract calligraphic works that C. C. Wang developed during the final decades of his life...
    C. C. Wang Abstract Calligraphy, 1995, ink and color on paper, hanging scroll 27 x 26 in 68.6 x 66 cm

    This work belongs to the abstract calligraphic works that C. C. Wang developed during the final decades of his life in New York. Trained within the classical literati tradition of Suzhou, Wang was among the last generation of artists to receive a rigorous education in poetry, calligraphy, and painting. His artistic foundation was therefore deeply rooted in the cultural and aesthetic values of Chinese literati art. After immigrating to the United States in 1949, he spent many years studying and observing at the Art Students League of New York. Living in New York—one of the major centers of twentieth-century modern art—Wang gradually encountered and reflected upon the visual language and artistic ideas emerging from movements such as Abstract Expressionism.

     

    In his later years, Wang began to explore new possibilities within the tradition of Chinese calligraphy. Rather than adhering to the readability of written characters, he transformed the act of writing into rhythmic movements of brush and ink. Line, space, and color interact to create a visual structure that unfolds almost like musical rhythm. While these works retain the internal vitality and discipline of Chinese brush tradition, they also resonate with the freedom and expressive energy associated with modern abstraction.

     

    This body of work reflects Wang’s unique artistic path as an immigrant artist working across cultures. Unlike many of his contemporaries in China who continued to follow established literati conventions, Wang—shaped by decades within the artistic environment of New York—developed a distinctive abstract calligraphic language that bridges classical Chinese brushwork and the visual sensibilities of modern art.

  • In the Shadow Curtains series, it allows an image to unfold in measured intervals, shaping perception through sequence and pause....
    Michael Cherney
    Shadow Curtains #5 影幔 #5
    ink on xuan paper, hanging scroll
    51 1/8 x 16 7/8 in each; 130 x 43 cm each
    In the Shadow Curtains series, it allows an image to unfold in measured intervals, shaping perception through sequence and pause. Michael Cherney adapts this aesthetic structure through photography. A single 35mm frame is fragmented across multiple scrolls, transforming the photographic image into a spatial and temporal experience.

    This work depicts a Buddha head from the Anyue Grottoes in Sichuan Province. The dim cave light required high film sensitivity, producing pronounced grain that fuses the stone surface and photographic medium into a textured monochrome field. Dramatically enlarged, the Buddha’s face acquires an imposing presence. Yet this intensity is not theatrical; it carries a sense of spiritual gravity and solemnity.

    Rendered as a shadow curtain, the segmented presentation both creates distance and disrupts stillness. The mottled surface of the Buddha’s face resists clear distinction between light and shadow, between the trace of history embedded in stone and the fleeting moment of photographic exposure. What appears simultaneously as an instant and as accumulated time unsettles the viewer’s sense of duration, inviting contemplation beyond linear perception.
  • In Golden Age, nearly identical Buddha images share the same scale, posture, and arched niche structure, generating a highly repetitive...
    Wang Mansheng
    Golden Age, 2010
    Woodblock print., Ink and Color on Paper, 
    76 3/4 x 82 1/4 in; 195 x 209 cm 

    In Golden Age, nearly identical Buddha images share the same scale, posture, and arched niche structure, generating a highly repetitive and ordered visual field. The individuality of any single figure is deliberately subdued, and the viewer’s gaze is invited to drift slowly across the rhythm of recurring forms.

     

    During the month he worked in the caves of Dunhuang, the artist repeatedly imagined the ancient painters and craftsmen laboring beside him. Time seemed to fold within the cave, and in his imagination he became one among them. Copying sutras, carving Buddhist images—day after day of repeated labor carried with it countless prayers, offering body and devotion to the divine. Through devotion, vow-making, and bodily labor, image-making entered a karmic ethical system in which the Buddhist icon-making was itself understood as an act of cultivation.

     

    In Chinese history, the flourishing and destruction of Buddhist image-making have always followed shifts in political power. Large-scale production was often accompanied by equally large-scale destruction and looting, leaving behind fragmented material traces. The makers of these images remain unknown, and the agents of their destruction have likewise faded into time. The devout wishes of countless believers were appropriated and overwritten, leaving behind only the damaged figures themselves, silent yet stubborn witnesses to what once was.

     

    The work’s formal repetition erases not only the individual craftsman’s self, but also the traces of specific historical persons. As a paper-based print medium fundamentally dependent on reproduction, it no longer points to devotional repetition alone, but to the systematized production, circulation, and consumption of Buddhist images across history.

    Historical images inevitably undergo loss and distortion in the course of transmission and preservation. Looking closely, variations in ink density, printing pressure, and material condition reveal the inevitable deviations produced in theprocesses of replication. The black background erases specific spatial and historical context, leaving the figures suspended in a time and space that can no longer be reconstructed. The use of gold recalls the visual tradition of the Buddha’s “golden body” and the imagery of a flourishing era within Buddhist art. Yet in its flattened surface, the gold evokes a brilliance as fragile as civilization itself. Floating against the black ground, the golden Buddhas seem to gesture toward a “Golden Age” that may exist only in memory and imagination.

  • The mission of a specimen is to represent. It should be clear and precise, demonstrating every single detail of a...
    Luo Min Memories from American Museum of Natural History 美国自然历史博物馆的草虫图 No.1 , 2024 watercolor and ink on paper 18 1/8 x 50 3/4 in 46 x 129 cm
    The mission of a specimen is to represent. It should be clear and precise, demonstrating every single detail of a species as a conglomeration of information. Luo Min’s specimens oppose these qualities. Her insects do not approach verisimilitude but carry fuzzy edges and curvy postures enhanced by the saturating qualities of water-based pigments. Instead of mounting the insects on a monochrome background like museum specimens, Luo populates her background with color dots and hues in pink and light brown scattered unevenly across the picture plane, generating a dreamy intimacy that softens the rigidity of the specimens and resurrects the insects. Mounting the specimens in a handscroll format also allows the static objects to be viewed in an occasional, portable, and flowing manner. Specimens are not only representations of certain species, but also vessels of the collectors’ memory, in which the animals themselves, though the process may be cruel, function as an index for a certain story. Maybe the collector went on a research trip, or maybe someone picked up the poor animal somewhere and donated it to the museum. But in either case, Luo’s handscroll emancipates viewers from being mere passive recipients of knowledge to active travelers in stories. Here, specimens not only represent biological information, but also a personal experience of traveling and feeling.
  • Across cultures, artists have turned to nature as a site for contemplation and inner stillness. In Buddhist and East Asian...
    Brandon Sadler
    Equinox, 2022
    Ink on xuan paper 水墨纸本
    28 1/2 x 28 1/2 in; 72.4 x 72.4 cm
    Across cultures, artists have turned to nature as a site for contemplation and inner stillness. In Buddhist and East Asian traditions, the lotus emerges from murky water unstained, which symbolizes purity and spiritual awakening. In this work, Atlanta-based artist Brandon Sadler engages this classical motif not as replication, but as personal meditation.

    Working in ink on xuan paper, Sadler channels the physical immediacy of brush and breath. The square composition departs from the traditional vertical scroll format, compressing space and heightening tension. Bold, gestural strokes allow ink to pool and disperse, oscillating between control and surrender. The blossoming flower and sweeping leaves become less descriptive forms than traces of embodied awareness.

    Rooted in cross-cultural study yet shaped by his own lived experience, Sadler’s lotus becomes a site of reflection — where movement, discipline, and improvisation converge in a contemporary expression of contemplation.
  • For Tang Ke, seasons do not end. The winter snow melts and breeds the bloom of spring, which flourishes in...
    Tang Ke Fruit 果实, 2018 Mixed Media on Canvas 布面综合材料 39 3/8 x 43 1/4 in 100 x 109.9 cm
    For Tang Ke, seasons do not end. The winter snow melts and breeds the bloom of spring, which flourishes in the summer, harvests in the fall, and withers, returns to the soil, and fertilizes the next spring. Time is thus a circle if you live with plants, which gives birth to Tang Ke’s winter melon. He plants in his garden, which allows him to get close enough to the plants, to not only be a painter who paints still life by staring at an object, but also be a farmer who lives with the object. A wintermelon, picked and placed on the table, is just one moment in the lifespan of the plant, yet for Tang, a fruit is not a stable object. It was grown from the last season, and destined to wither in the next. And when this melon is remediated into a portrait, the painting also follows such a lifespan: growing from a blank sheet of paper, and being exhibited and traded after it is done. The practice of life thus unfolds as recursive, and Tang’s melon becomes a site where time, nature, and destiny are meditated.
  • If you think about everything you see as a painting, walking in the fog or staring at your ceiling in...
    Shen Chen
    untitled No.50066-0917, 2017
    Acrylic on Canvas
    48 x 42 in; 121.9 x 106.7 cm
    If you think about everything you see as a painting, walking in the fog or staring at your ceiling in the dark is a meditative moment. Your sense loses focus in the emptiness, therefore returns to your inner self, where the warmth and intimacy overcome the insecurity given by not having a reference point in the emptiness. A painter faces such a moment before the first stroke lands on the plain picture panel; one is absorbed by the overwhelming blank, emptying the mind into a sea of thoughts. 

    Shen Chen’s art drifts in a synthesis of emptiness and abundance. He paints with a flat tip brush, and because he has to stand and hold it like a broom, the brush only leaves straight lines from one side to the other across his canvas. After he fills the frame for once, he waits till the acrylic is dry, and paints it again. Such motion is mechanical, but the traces he left form a harmonic image of dense, tangible strokes like a hand-woven tapestry. Shen’s weaving is time-consuming, always taking him months to finish. During which period, his mind has to be entirely focused and enclosed, turning the process of painting into a process of facing himself.

  • In the seven paintings that make up his Meditation series, Arnold Chang gives up conscious preparation, composition, and color theories, and paints by allowing his hand to swim carelessly across the paper. Chang’s approach resembles a myth mentioned by great writers such as Fernando Pessoa and William Yeats, that the human mind is able to reach a certain state, when the subconscious or unconscious takes over the mind and enters a state of automatic writing, or “psychography.” Widely practiced by and associated with witchcraft, spiritualism, and Zen Buddhism, psychography has long been regarded as some sort of magic.

     

    In theory, painting without your mind as the director can easily result in a mess; yet Chang’s image is figurative in a way: the strokes swirl and interact, working together with the colors to produce a consistent tone. However, when the eye tries to sort out a recognizable shape or pattern in the image, it finds itself lost in the strokes’ dynamics, returning to the starting point in an effortless flow. In such a viewing process, the artist transports the audience to an elongated time and space for meditation, releasing the mind and allowing the unconsciousness to move in the same motion as the painting’s creation.

  • Arnold Chang
    Meditation #3, 2026
    color on paper
    27 3/4 x 21 1/4 in
    70.5 x 54 cm
  • “Things exist as themselves; therein lies what is real.” Tea, gathered from the ordinariness of daily life, seeps into xuan...
    Liang Quan
    Tea Stains 茶渍 1, 2015
    Mix media on paper
    10 5/8 x 15 1/8 in; 27 x 38.5 cm
    “Things exist as themselves; therein lies what is real.” Tea, gathered from the ordinariness of daily life, seeps into xuan paper and spreads according to its own rhythm, leaving behind unadorned, uncorrected traces. The emergence of tea stains recalls the language of ink painting, yet remains distinct from it. With Chan Buddhism as his guiding sensibility and tea as his chromatic medium, the artist allowed the image to unfold in a state of quiet freedom and transcendence.

    Chan’s notion of “non-duality” dissolves the opposition between subject and object, allowing all things to manifest according to their own nature. In Tea Stains, the artist relinquishes control over the medium. Tea exists as itself: the gradations of tone, the soft diffusion of edges, and the darker cores formed through oxidation register the autonomous movement of matter itself. Within the composition, stain and blank space sustain one another. Each mark asserts a tangible presence, yet it also breathes within surrounding emptiness. Solidity and void no longer stand in opposition; they arise together, each generating and completing the other.
  • Hanafusa’s “process paintings,” which represent a profound evolution from the artist’s earlier minimalist period, embody a mystical visual language rooted in his ecosophic worldview – a philosophy of ecological harmony or equilibrium. Concepts such as time, materiality, and process are foregrounded through the use of custom-made silver or golden aluminum paint, Hanafusa’s preferred material. Central to Hanafusa’s philosophy is the notion of uchuiden, the shared, latent memories of the cosmos that interconnect all human beings. This concept serves as the spiritual foundation of his Cosmic Inherent Memory (Uchuiden Kioku) series. Hanafusa articulates this concept with the following statement: “I didn’t do the work; Nature did it,” highlighting his collaborative approach with nature. At the methodological level, Hanafusa borrows nature’s power to express his unique understanding of materiality. In this series, water- and oil-based aluminum paints were brushed on the canvas and left to stratify under gravity. The paints flow and converge, drying with traces of bubbles and wrinkles on the canvas. This process-oriented method underscores the boundless possibilities in time and space, bridging the visible and invisible, the material and the spiritual, and reflecting his belief in the interconnectedness of all existence through the interplay of time and materiality.

  • Spanning classical ink traditions and modern abstraction, the exhibition presents works from representational landscape to non-objective form. Across cultural contexts and historical moments, a shared aspiration becomes visible: the cultivation of clarity, calm, and perceptual awareness. Through restraint, openness, and attentive structure, distinct artistic systems converge in their pursuit of stillness—not as retreat from the world, but as an intensified mode of inhabiting it. 

     

    We thank Carol Sirugo, Gracious Pine Studio, The Richard Pousette-Dart Foundation and Pace Gallery for their loans.