隐身皴：袁慧莉个展

2021年开春第一档，耿画廊将于地下一楼展厅，推出袁慧莉历经四年苦心孤诣完成的《隐身皴》新作个展。

「皴法」是中国水墨画中最重要的造型元素，也是现代水墨画运动革新中主诉对象，皴法从古典水墨的笔墨技法到现代水墨强调物性肌理，还能如何再推进其形式意涵? 此次袁慧莉以「皴法」为题，将展示其花费十余年深入思考的创作成果。

袁慧莉认为，从格物致理的五代宋朝，发展到侧重笔墨意趣的元明清，乃至现代水墨画新技法下的皴法，不论其型态笔墨变化如何，不论形似或不似，皴法的符征或符旨，被指涉于或附属于自然山石肌理的形意语法范畴，历来并不曾改变，也就是说，皴法未曾被独立地观看。

同时，袁慧莉从女性主体意识出发，观察到中国山水画是以男性主体为主所建构的历史，女性画家往往依附在男性主导的水墨论述与形意体系中，这个体系向来欠缺女性主体意识自身发展的形意语境。

那么如何置入女性主体意识于皴法中？并且改变原本皴法只作为指涉自然的形意诠释规律？这两个提问促使她十余年来不断透过《太虚》系列、《类山水》系列进行探索研究，最终在《袁氏皴谱》完成她所追索的答案。

此次「隐身皴」个展中，袁慧莉透过「皴法」这一议题，巧妙地借着水墨艺术中最基础且最模件化的技法，自绵延传承的水墨脉络中撬开小孔，钻入其中进行颠覆。在与水墨历史的对话间，袁慧莉以女性视角作为路径、以《袁氏皴谱》、《类山水》的形意重构为方法、以「差异并置」的美学为概念、以块状模件拼贴重组为生产模态，出入情绪与物性之间，穿梭于古今辩证之间，跳出过往水墨画论述的窠臼，展现当代的创新思维。展名「隐身皴」虽名「隐身」，却于皴块形意中揭示艺术家主体的存在，虽隐实显，不以具体身体现身，但其身影魂魄却隐于其中。

To welcome spring 2021, the Tina Keng Gallery is pleased to present Hidden Emotion in Texture, Yuan Hui-Li’s latest solo exhibition — a culmination of her painstaking efforts of the past four years — in the exhibition hall on the underground floor.

Cun (皴), or texturizing, is one of the essential techniques in traditional shanshui painting, as well as the primary subject in the revolution of contemporary ink painting. Evolving from an ancient, fundamental ink technique to a contemporary emphasis on physical texture, how can texturizing further transform itself?

Guided by female consciousness, the artist came to the realization that shanshui painting chronicles a history shaped by the male perspective. Female painters are often considered an auxiliary of the male-dominated ink discourse, where a vocabulary of form and meaning developed by the female consciousness is absent. How should the female consciousness be embedded in the texturizing method, and change the way this technique has been applied to simply refer to nature? This question has galvanized Yuan’s “Ambiguous World” and “THEY Shanshui” series, and led at last to “Manual of Yuan’s Texturizing Strokes,” where she has found answers.

Through her investigation of cun, the artist subverts the ages-long tradition of ink by reconstructing form and meaning in the Manual of Yuan’s Texturizing Strokes and “THEY Shanshui” series, where juxtaposed differences emerge as her aesthetic concept, collages of blocks as her painting style. Unhindered, she moves between emotion and materiality, tradition and contemporaneity. While the exhibition delves into hidden emotion in texture, it reveals in the form and meaning of cun blocks the artist’s subjectivity, not in physical manifestation, but in spirit and interiority hidden in plain sight.

About Yuan Hui-Li 

Born in 1963 in Taipei, Taiwan, Yuan Hui-Li is also known as Yuan Shu. 

She received a bachelor’s degree from the first Chinese ink painting program of the National Institute of the Arts (now TNUA) in 1987, a master’s degree in ink painting from the Taipei National University of the Arts in 2005, and a doctoral degree in art creation and theory from the Tainan National University of the Arts in 2016. She is currently an adjunct assistant professor at the Center for General Education of the National Tsing Hua University. 

Her work is housed in the collections of several international institutions, including the UBS (Union Bank of Switzerland), London, UK; National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, Taichung, Taiwan; Art Bank Taiwan, Taichung, Taiwan; Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts, Kaohsiung, Taiwan; Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts, Taipei, Taiwan; Juming Museum, New Taipei City, Taiwan; and Han House Museum, Hangzhou, China. Notable exhibitions include Force Field and Variations: The Cross-Culturally of Ink Painting, Remarkable Cultivation Art Gallery, Tainan, Taiwan (2017); Reading the Landscape: Stories From Artists, Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts, Kaohsiung, Taiwan (2016); A Place of One’s Own: Juming Museum Collection, Juming Museum, New Taipei City, Taiwan (2016); Reshaping Tradition, China Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing, China (2015); Collection and Dialogue — Taiwan’s Contemporary Ink Painting, Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts, Kaohsiung, Taiwan (2014); The New Space: 2009 Exhibition of Contemporary Cross-Strait Ink Paintings, National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, Taichung, Taiwan (2009); Form, Idea, Essence, Rhythm: Contemporary East Asian Ink Painting, Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Taipei, Taiwan (2008); and Innovational and Experimental Chinese Ink Painting, Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Taipei, Taiwan (1992).