Black River Flow
27aug(aug 27)16:0025sep(sep 25)16:00
Event Details
Chinese Dutch artist Ma Hui once said, “I already knew how to work with ink, water and paper before I was born…”, and in her case, it is no exaggeration. Born in 1958 to a family of a high-ranking Party official, her father a renowned calligrapher, the practice of shuimo was, as she says, like ink flowing through her veins and in her heart.
If her love of shuimo was inherited from her father, then it was invigorated by her experiences in a re-education village in the countryside of the Ningxia province: the yellow clay of the riverbanks, the dark swirling waters, the songs of the fishermen as they tended their boats, and the long ropes floating aimlessly on the currents and eddies.
The memories, undiminished by her 28 years living in Europe, continue to inspire her practice, perhaps more strongly because of those intervening years, as if often the case with first generation émigrés, who feel the love of their home soil most deeply for its absence. Shuimo has become the private language of her soul, the bridge that connects her to home.
Nevertheless, her time in Europe has not been without its influence, reducing her colour palette to the simplicity of red and black, and introducing elements of collage, as well as her use of contemporary coated papers, for their saturation and shine, their highlighting of the nature of ink.
While life in Europe has allowed her the distance to develop her shuimo in isolation from the trends in experimental ink practice in China, it nonetheless is her daily practice that connects her forever to the river of her childhood.
Curator: Hutch Wilco, Gao Yi
玄色：马蕙作品展
荷兰华裔艺术家马蕙曾说过：”出生之际，我就知道该如何运用墨，水和宣纸…”。 了解她的人都知道，这个说法并未夸大其辞。 出生于1958年的她，来自一个条件优越的家庭，她的父亲是一位著名书法家。所以，对于水墨的研习，正如她自己所说，就像是流淌在血液里一般的自然。
如果说，对于水墨的热爱是源自她的父亲，而激发她创作灵感的动因，则是在宁夏农村接受再教育的经历：河边的黄泥、黑色的漩涡、纤夫的歌声，以及在涡流中漫无目的漂浮着的绳索。这些记忆并没有在马蕙长达28年的欧洲生活中消逝，而是持续不断地给予她创作上的营养。和第一代移民一样，也许正因为当年的经历，马蕙在远离祖国之后感受到一股更强烈的眷恋感情。从此，水墨成为她灵魂中最私密的语言，以及与祖国维系纽带的桥梁。当然，欧洲的生活也不是毫无影响。她的色彩观念逐步发展到红与黑的简约，又添加进拼贴的元素。为了凸显色彩的饱和度与亮度，体现水墨的天然光泽感，她也会使用涂有涂层的现代纸张。
尽管远在欧洲的生活给了她足够的距离，去发展和在国内的实验性水墨趋势完全不同的方向；但儿时的河边记忆，却依然是她日常创作实践的永恒源泉。
策展人 魏皓啟，高毅
Willem Offenberg
www.art-mediaconsult.com
www.mahui.eu
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