Chen Ping

Nine Songs Ancient Poems

4 May — 20 May 2023

Born 1962, China
Lives and works Hobart

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Represented by nanda\hobbs

Nine Songs Ancient Poems

Chen Ping is an artist who creates narratives that exist somewhere between the natural and poetic realms. Floating faces, forms and figures reveal themselves in canvases adorned with viscous oil paint. Chen constructs his subliminal worlds through sweeping gestures and deliberate touch, mimicking the patient rhythm of the ancient calligrapher with their ink brush. 

For Chen, the morphing of nature, humanity, and philosophy traces back to his classical training at the Guangzhou Academy of Art as a painter in China, and his learnedness in the centuries-old tradition of scroll painting. Titled Nine Songs Ancient Poems, this exhibition takes inspiration from the anthology of the Songs of Chu, attributed to Qu Yuan (243-277 B.C.E). These ancient verses recount shamanistic stories of journeys in the spiritual world. Chen interprets these poems by blurring the relationship between humanistic, objective, and allusive forms.

While rooted in Eastern tradition, Chen simultaneously meditates on the Western landscape of Tasmania, where he’s resided for nearly thirty years. Hiking the surrounding mountains and coastline near Hobart, Chen reconciles physical observations through the lens of ancient Taoist philosophy. 

Chen accomplishes a sense of yin and yang in his paintings by balancing the physical with the mystical and the figurative with the abstract. The potency of Chen Ping’s work resides in his ability to suspend time and place so that the viewer is swept into a story taking place between the metaphysical and tangible world.

 

Lana Hoffman
May, 2023

 

\ Exhibition featured works

Chen Ping

Bird Songs (study)

2022 \ Oil on canvas \ 40 x 50cm

Chen Ping

Fuchsia (study) 1

2022 \ Oil on canvas \ 50 x 40cm

Chen Ping

Fuchsia (study) 2

2022 \ Oil on canvas \ 50 x 40cm

Chen Ping

Mountain Spirits (study)

2022 \ Oil on canvas \ 50 x 40cm

SOLD

Chen Ping

Nine Songs, Beautiful Life

2023 \ Oil on canvas \ 122.8 x 92.5cm

SOLD

Chen Ping

Nine Songs, Big Bang

2023 \ Oil on canvas \ 122.8 x 92.5cm

SOLD

Chen Ping

Nine Songs, Immortality

2023 \ Oil on canvas \ 122.8 x 92.5cm

Chen Ping

Quiet World before Songs 2

2023 \ Oil on canvas \ 90 x 60cm

Chen Ping

Quiet world, Returning Whale 1

2023 \ Oin on canvas \ 122.8 x 92.5cm

Chen Ping

Tibetan Bird, Flying with You to Earth 1

2023 \ Oil on canvas \ 90 x 60cm

\ News

NH Event

Chen Ping—Nine Songs Ancient Poems, now on show in the N\H Project Space

3 May 2023

We are delighted to present Nine Songs Ancient Poems by Chinese, Tasmanian based artist Chen Ping on show until 20 May in the Project Space.

Read more

\ Other exhibitions

Hubert Pareroultja

"When the rain tumbles down in july"

21 March — 6 April 2024

PEOPLE,

Group Exhibition

29 February — 16 March 2024

Jonathan Dalton

MELBOURNE ART FAIR

22 February — 25 February 2024

Contact Us

to find out more about Nine Songs Ancient Poems.

12 - 14 Meagher Street Chippendale, NSW 2008
Opening Hours
Monday to Friday, 9.00am - 5.30pm Saturday, 11am - 4pm Closed Public Holidays (and Easter Saturday)