Ink After the Contemporary

Chen Hanqing 陈汉青 (b. 1996) was born in Quanzhou and began his training in traditional ink painting at an early age. Through sustained practice, he has developed a distinctive approach to contemporary ink that treats tradition not as a stylistic archive, but as a living system of thought. Centred on the rational spirit of Song-dynasty literati painting, his work seeks to reactivate the worldview of ‘gewu zhizhi’ — investigating things to understand principles — within a present-day context. His compositions are marked by restraint and structural clarity, combining the condensed brush language associated with Bada Shanren and the disciplined pictorial order of Song ink traditions. Flowers, weathered rocks and solitary birds recur as primary motifs, rendered with dry brush, feibai (flying white), and subtle tonal modulation. Through sparse spatial arrangements and controlled ink gradations, Chen transforms states of solitude, hesitation and introspection into quiet visual meditations.

In his recent flower-and-rock series, Chen draws inspiration from the compositional layering and colour sensibility of Lê Phổ, incorporating aspects of Southeast Asian ink traditions into his practice. This cross-regional dialogue reflects his understanding of ink painting as an open and evolving system rather than a closed historical canon. Maintaining a balance between gongbi (meticulous rendering) and xieyi (expressive execution), and working on both silk and paper with restrained colour, he preserves the material integrity of ink while introducing a contemporary spatial and conceptual awareness. Rather than seeking reconciliation between past and present, Chen sustains a productive tension between the rational discipline of classical literati painting and the critical sensibility of contemporary ink art.

Liu Ting 刘亭 (b. 1983) was born in Shandong and graduated from the Traditional Chinese Painting department at Shandong University of the Arts. Working primarily in ink on xuan paper, she established a distinctive visual vocabulary early in her career through an ongoing series of rounded, voluptuous female figures. Situated between reality and imagination, these figures construct a feminine realm grounded in contemporary lived experience. While her exaggerated corporeal volume inevitably recalls Fernando Botero, Liu’s orientation diverges fundamentally from satire or allegory. Rather than critiquing power structures, she centres on the emotional states, expectations and self-perceptions of contemporary youth. The body becomes a site of subjectivity and self-recognition, generating images that are intimate, introspective and quietly affirmative.

At the same time, Liu’s ink practice resonates with the spirit-focused principles of Gu Kaizhi, particularly the emphasis on “depicting the spirit through form.” Through calibrated variations of ink density, dryness and layering, she creates a restrained psychological space in which stillness carries emotional weight. Moving beyond orthodox literati tonal hierarchies, she reintroduces colour as an integral structural and atmospheric element, allowing ink to function not only as contour but as a comprehensive medium shaping space and mood. Within the expanded discourse of post-contemporary ink, Liu transforms female consciousness and bodily experience into the internal driving force of her work. Her paintings do not deliver fixed narratives; instead, they offer an open and elastic field in which body, emotion and identity remain in active negotiation.

Pang Xiaochen 庞啸晨 (b. 1990) was born in Hebei, China, and graduated from the Central Academy of Fine Arts, where he studied under Liu Qinghe. Through rigorous academic training, he mastered the brush-and-ink structures of xieyi (freehand) ink painting while inheriting a lineage of thought rooted in Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing literati traditions. For Pang, ink is not merely a stylistic vehicle but a way of knowing and engaging the world. Extending this intellectual trajectory into the present, he employs xieyi ink painting as a methodology for observing contemporary life, transforming brush and ink into instruments for reflecting on social structures and individual experience.

His subjects include passers-by from everyday life, iconic figures from art history and animals, all rendered with a suspended presence that oscillates between observation and introspection. Through layered applications of ink and colour, and the deliberate act of “seeking the white edge” (xunzhao baibian), he creates forms that hover between definition and dissolution. This interstitial space generates a quiet yet sustained narrative force, encouraging a slower mode of viewing. Art-historically, his figure paintings resonate with the socially engaged ink tradition exemplified by Jiang Zhaohe, though without direct stylistic replication. Instead, Pang inherits the methodological core of using ink to engage lived reality. Rooted in the epistemological foundations of literati xieyi painting while attentive to modern social consciousness, his practice reactivates ink as a reflective and perceptual field within contemporary life.

Zeng Jianyong 曾健勇 (b. 1971) was born in Guangdong, China. He graduated from the Chinese Painting programme at Huaqiao University and later pursued further studies in the Printmaking Department at the Central Academy of Fine Arts. Widely regarded as a significant figure in contemporary Chinese ink art, Zeng has consistently focused on expanding the language of ink beyond the flat pictorial surface. By integrating painting, paper-sculptural construction and spatial installation, he “spatialises” ink, transforming it from a representational medium into an experiential spatial mechanism. His compressed yet immersive environments unfold along a horizon line, forming intermediary zones between reality and imagination in which viewers are visually enveloped though not physically admitted.

Drawing conceptually on the spatial consciousness of Song dynasty landscape masters such as Li Cheng, Fan Kuan and Guo Xi, Zeng abstracts principles of the “Three Distances” to construct multi-layered viewing systems. Mountains, figures and scenic elements function as structural nodes within shifting spatial orders rather than as descriptive motifs. Through layering, occlusion and sectional division, he destabilises single-point perspective and reconfigures traditional shan shui experience into a psychological theatre of perception. Extending ink into paper-sculptural and installation-based practices, Zeng has developed a distinctive artistic system in which landscape, figure and memory converge to create immersive “theatrical sites” charged with cultural resonance and spatial tension.