By Jennifer Eagleton
WiPS recent tour at 3812 Gallery was of an exhibition showcasing work on paper created by Liu Guofu between 2016 and 2024 and demonstrates Liu’s mastery of three different types of media: ink and colour, oil, and oil pastel. Inspired by two words in a poem (青苔 – “green moss”) by the Tang dynasty poet Wang Wei (699-759 AD)*, the exhibition’s title draws upon that poem’s reflection on nature without human presence (the “hush”) as shadows fall at the end of day (the “dusk”). The interplay between shadow and light using ink and muted colour, oil and oil pastel on paper, is a major nod to tradition but done in a fully contemporary and unique way.
Many of the works are “untitled” in keeping with the fleetingness of nature. The undefined, generally abstract forms of the works dealing with the landscape have layered, monochromatic “thrown” and textured brushstrokes reflecting nature’s spontaneity. The “flower” series is somewhat less abstract in form and is of lotuses, often the subject of Chinese traditional painting as being something pure arising out of mud, mirroring the Buddhist concept of rising above striving for the world’s concerns in order to achieve selflessness. “Dusk Upon the Hush I” is a series of projecting forms with an emerging, central vibrant white light, perhaps indicating the life force of nature. Ultimately, the artist’s overall aim is to evoke introspection in the viewer.
WiPS thanks gallery manager Agnes Wu for our instructive visit.
Empty mountains:
no one to be seen.
Yet – hear –
human sounds and echoes.
Returning sunlight
enters the dark woods;
Again shining
on the green moss, above.
*(Wang Wei’s poem translated by Gary Snyder, 1978)