On December 16th, the "Dumpling Feast - Fang Limin Watermark Prints Exhibition" opened at the Hongqiao Museum of Contemporary Art in Shanghai. In this solo exhibition, 53 prints by Fang Limin from 2001 to 2021 are exhibited.
Fang Limin, who is from Quzhou, Zhejiang Province, graduated from the Printmaking Department of the China Academy of Art in 1999 with a master's degree, stayed on to teach in the same year, and was awarded the "Lu Xun Printmaking Award" by the China Printmakers Association.
For decades, Fang Limin has walked on the road of printmaking, through black and white, mimeograph, pastel printing, etc., and then to the woodblock watermark, and indulged in the woodblock watermark.
Golden Week 2011
Unlike mimeograph prints, which originated in the West, watermark prints are a traditional Chinese printmaking technique. Due to its special printing material (generally using rice paper), the printing process is fundamentally different from general printing, and the printed product has almost the same effect as the original.
The so-called plate watermark, slightly different from the general overprint, it is based on the thickness and length of the brushwork of the drawing, straight and square, rigid and soft and dry, the depth of the color, cold and warm, the hue to the back of the yin and yang for sub-plate copying, respectively carved into a number of plates, and then compared with the original, from light to deep, pen by pen, color by color sequentially superimposed, and strive to trace the original work, fine carving, so as to reach the point of almost chaotic truth.
For more than twenty years, Fang Limin has indulged in the elegance of rice paper and the smudge of ink. His watermark prints, starting from sensibility, grasp the characteristics of water-based materials, analyze the language of art forms, give play to the function of printmaking expression, and choose feasible entry points, which is a new style of printmaking that integrates tradition, contemporary and personality.
posters
Among the works on display, it can be seen that the ink color of black, white and gray constitutes the basic tone of Fang Limin's prints. A mountain and a water, a hill and a ravine, in the green stream leaves, water shadow horizontal slope, Fang Limin focused on the "fun" and "rhyme" in the printmaking imprint.
Fang Limin's printmaking subjects, whether landscapes or figures, come from social reality, but at the same time they are higher than reality. He said: "There is a difference between people's understanding of things and things in nature, so in creation they abandon the things in nature and turn to depicting things in ideas. ”
From landscapes to figures, from screen strips to long scrolls, the audience can see that the artist is constantly enriching and expanding the expressive ability of watermark prints, making it an artistic language with distinctive characteristics, so that the audience can obtain a unique perspective of viewing and recognizing contemporary life.
The exhibition is organized by Shanghai Hongqiao Museum of Contemporary Art and The School of Painting of China Academy of Art, organized by Shanghai Hongqiao Peninsula Printmaking Art Center, and co-organized by Shanghai New Hongqiao Culture and Art Exchange Center, and will be on display until December 26.
(Note: Dumplings are gluttony)