In this Insight sector of Art Basel Hong Kong 2022, A Thousand Plateaus Art Space will present Wang Chuan’s solo project titled “Diary of Spiritual Life”, featuring three pieces of his large-scale ink paintings on rice paper completed in 2003. This period, starting from 1985, was the most significant turning point of his over-40-year artistic career, during which Wang’s painting shifted from figurative to abstract art. This is followed by a selection of Wang Chuan’s abstract ink paintings from 2009 to 2013 as well as a series of most recent works created in New York during the COVID-19 pandemic. The works in three stages not only outline the artist’s continuous excavation of life experience since 2003, but also present us a record of an artist’s spiritual life, revealing the preciousness and fragility of life and the artist’s self-healing through art.
Wang Chuan was born in 1953 in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China. Wang is one of the first major artists to explore abstract painting during the “85 New Waves” movement of Chinese contemporary art. He is also one of the earliest artists to consciously practice the language of painting and to explore the contrast between Eastern and Western art. His understanding of society and life changed radically, especially after he suffered from cancer, was treated, recovered and converted to Buddhism in the late 1990s. For Wang Chuan, painting is not only a reflection and exploration of culture and art, but also an invaluable instrument of self-healing.
