This comes from Fallon and Rosoff in part 3 of a report from Asia announcing the opening of the new contemporary art museum in Bankok. Scrolling down the post, the colours of this Richard Tsao painting jumped out of the screen and slapped me in my face on a slumbery Monday morning.

Another artist concerned with the yearly flooding is Richard Tsao who uses water based colors to tint his flooded studio and then sops up the color with paper.

A quick google search for more information dug of this great photo of Richard Tsao in his studio as well as some clothing designs via Asia Society

Richard Tsao in his studio

There are also some great monoprints over at Art Projects International and a bunch of other work and this other great studio shot over at ChinaSquare Gallery. Uhmm….can I just say, I’d much rather be there than here in my cubicle in front of the computer!

Richard Tsao's Studio

Even the Chinese are doing “Obama Art!” Lin Yan uses ink and paper to create her work. What is increadible is that they feel heavy and solid and seem to carry the weight of time.

Yang Chihung / Dreaming Blue / 2007 / acrylic on canvas / 198.1 x 254 cm / 78 x 100 in. / ChinaSquare Gallery

I have been on a Chinese painting kick recently and will be posting more over the next little while I am sure, but…I got to this exhibit at ChinaSquare Gallery last month. Yang Chihung’s paintings are dynamic and exciting, I spent a long time in front of each piece just looking and it still wasn’t enough. Each painting is rich in complexity and reveals itself over time. I admire the energy and movement in the gestures and the spacial dynamics established in the compositions. Unfortunately the paintings were executed in acrylic and finished with an overall gloss varnish. The result was that the paintings had a very uniform plastic surface that was not very inviting. It’s almost as if they were hanging on the walls wrapped in plastic for display, I could look but I couldn’t touch. They lacked that sensuous quality of an oil painting or the complexity of ink or watercolor on a rag paper or silk. However, the color stains and the quality of his gestures are unique to water media, specifically acrylic on raw canvas. They work with the strengths of the medium and display superb understanding and masterful handling of the brush. It is the structure of the brushwork, the building up of the composition with multitude of various strokes and touches, that gives the paints such a wonderful life and energy.

Chihung Yang’s deeply complex abstractions and sweeping brushwork transports the viewer into universe ruled by the Chinese tradition of the ephemeral “floating clouds and flowing waters.” In tanding before Yang’s work, it seems as if the universe has come to a standstill, that his clouds and rivulets of paint have been frozen in time. Yet, his balanced compositions hint at the grandeur of nature, or perhaps chaos unleashed and then reigned in. Mixing subtle monochromatic hues with right bursts of paint, the fleeting appearance of color results in a feeling of life breaking through oil, or rays peeking through clouds. Organic structures emerge from the otherwise abstract nature of Yang’s painting in the form of buds, roots and veins. As abstract painting, Yang’s oeuvre stands its own in comparison with the great names of the tradition, whether Western or Chinese.

It’s been a busy week between work, painting, and hanging a group show last Sunday, but I was able to get to a bunch of shows that I will try to write about this weekend. Stay tuned….

Chihung Yang @ ChinaSquare
Tom Leaver @ McKenzie Fine Art
Tony Magar @ Mike Weiss Gallery
Andre Butzer and Walter Robinson @ Metro Pictures
Miriam Schapiro @ Flomenhaft
Subhankar Banerjee @ Sundaram Tagore
Andre Millner @ Tria Gallery
Monica Mary @ Explorations
Deborah Ragasto & Michael Souter @ Allen Gallery
Tening Rigdol & Palden Weinreb @ Dinter Fine Art
Rudol De Crignis @ Peter Blum Chelsea
Los Carpinteros @ Sean Kelly
100 Stories @ Hosfelt Gallery
Peter Hujar @ Matthew Marks
Martians & Homeland Insecurity @ Esso Gallery
ASS•AS•SIN: hashish anyone @ Lombard-Freid Projects
New Ukrainian Painting @ White Box