Pan Gongkai was born in Hangzhou in 1947. Influenced by his father Pan Tianshou (1897-1971) who was one of the top Four Masters of Chinese Painting in the 20th century. His father was regarded alongside Huang Binhong, Wu Changshuo and Qi Baishi. During the Cultural Revolution, Pan Gongkai’s father had been accused for crime as a “Reactionary Academic Authority”. In consequence of his father’s crime, Pan Gongkai was banished to a barren village for 8-year “Reform through Labor” punishment and retribution. In his early 30’s, Pan Gongkai returned to his normal life and invested himself in studying and practicing traditional Chinese art and its history. He set himself to explore the intersections and divergences between Eastern and Western art traditions. By combining elements of both perspectives, he exemplified a new relevancy to Chinese sumi painting with a contemporary global perspective. (Source)
Pan Gongkai is one of the most unique and influential artists alive today. He has achieved great accomplishments in art education, Chinese painting, art theory, contemporary art and architectural design.
I saw Pan Gongkai’s show Withered Lotus Cast in Iron – a series of giant contemporary ink landscapes – at the Frye a few years ago. The work was magnificent. Rough and graceful, sensitive and bold. They were larger than Monet’s water lilies and deeply affecting. His “unmannered splendor” avoided all superficial beauty so commonly seen in landscapes. The autumn blossoms in Pan’s painting are neither frail, nor weak. Instead, they are forged with strength, “cast in iron.” This reference to iron in the context of ink painting is not unusual. Ancient brush painters would describe using the brush as “iron, splashing the ink like waves,” and of forceful brushwork that resembles wrought iron. (Frye)
Watch Pan Gongkai paint
Peer over the shoulder of Henry Li, sumi teacher, as he makes masterwork studies of Pan Gongkai’s paintings
Flying the viewer over Pan Gongkai’s ink and paper as if it was a landscape. There are a few moments that are digital and cheesy, but most of this is quite lovely, with extremely high resolution photography allowing us to see into the texture of the ink and paper. Please watch this on the largest screen possible.
Beginning Sumi Ink ONLINE: this Saturday, July 11, 10:00-1:00
Sumi II ONLINE: 2 Saturdays, July 18/25, 10:00-2:00
Angie Dixon
Angie Dixon studied art at the University of Washington where she received two degrees: one in fine arts and the other in art history in 1976. Dixon was 1 of 24 Americans in the first group accepted into the art school to study classic Chinese Landscape Painting and other Chinese painting and calligraphy in Hangzhou, the Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts in the people’s Republic of China. She continued with graduate studies in the People’s Republic of China at the Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts in 1984.
Her training has been in the traditional use of Asian Brush and Ink Painting in its varied forms. She has pursued bringing brush and ink into contemporary art language in her own work along with practicing the tradition.
[image_with_animation image_url=”7883″ alignment=”center” animation=”None” box_shadow=”none” max_width=”100%”] This is a line. Today, respond to the scribble (above) to make a drawing. You can print it out, trace it, or redraw it. Share your drawings to this post on our Facebook page. (#salchallenge) The January Creative Challenge: 15 minutes, once a day, for 30 days.
Teaching an online class with the League this fall: Jonathan Harkham. Jonathan is another professional artist/instructor we found at the New York Studio School where he is an alumni and instructor. Currently under quarantine in his LA studio, Jonathan has shifted his attention from painting friends and live models to painting a series of 80’s …
The Migration Series In 1941, Jacob Lawrence, then just twenty-three years old, completed a series of sixty paintings about the Great Migration, the mass movement of African Americans from the rural South to the urban North. Lawrence’s work is a landmark in the history of modern art and a key example of the way that …
I enjoy how this artist used a combination of graphite and ink to produce wide swathes of soft burnished textures with diffused light lines (erased), and thin liquid dark contrast. I enjoy how the compositions are studies of energy between two objects, and the surrounding spaces. The reflections are shared between the two balloons, but also …
Pan Gongkai
Pan Gongkai was born in Hangzhou in 1947. Influenced by his father Pan Tianshou (1897-1971) who was one of the top Four Masters of Chinese Painting in the 20th century. His father was regarded alongside Huang Binhong, Wu Changshuo and Qi Baishi. During the Cultural Revolution, Pan Gongkai’s father had been accused for crime as a “Reactionary Academic Authority”. In consequence of his father’s crime, Pan Gongkai was banished to a barren village for 8-year “Reform through Labor” punishment and retribution. In his early 30’s, Pan Gongkai returned to his normal life and invested himself in studying and practicing traditional Chinese art and its history. He set himself to explore the intersections and divergences between Eastern and Western art traditions. By combining elements of both perspectives, he exemplified a new relevancy to Chinese sumi painting with a contemporary global perspective. (Source)
Pan Gongkai is one of the most unique and influential artists alive today. He has achieved great accomplishments in art education, Chinese painting, art theory, contemporary art and architectural design.
I saw Pan Gongkai’s show Withered Lotus Cast in Iron – a series of giant contemporary ink landscapes – at the Frye a few years ago. The work was magnificent. Rough and graceful, sensitive and bold. They were larger than Monet’s water lilies and deeply affecting. His “unmannered splendor” avoided all superficial beauty so commonly seen in landscapes. The autumn blossoms in Pan’s painting are neither frail, nor weak. Instead, they are forged with strength, “cast in iron.” This reference to iron in the context of ink painting is not unusual. Ancient brush painters would describe using the brush as “iron, splashing the ink like waves,” and of forceful brushwork that resembles wrought iron. (Frye)
Beginning Sumi Ink ONLINE: this Saturday, July 11, 10:00-1:00
Sumi II ONLINE: 2 Saturdays, July 18/25, 10:00-2:00
Angie Dixon studied art at the University of Washington where she received two degrees: one in fine arts and the other in art history in 1976. Dixon was 1 of 24 Americans in the first group accepted into the art school to study classic Chinese Landscape Painting and other Chinese painting and calligraphy in Hangzhou, the Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts in the people’s Republic of China. She continued with graduate studies in the People’s Republic of China at the Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts in 1984.
Her training has been in the traditional use of Asian Brush and Ink Painting in its varied forms. She has pursued bringing brush and ink into contemporary art language in her own work along with practicing the tradition.
See her work: angiedixonartist.com.
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Teaching an online class with the League this fall: Jonathan Harkham. Jonathan is another professional artist/instructor we found at the New York Studio School where he is an alumni and instructor. Currently under quarantine in his LA studio, Jonathan has shifted his attention from painting friends and live models to painting a series of 80’s …
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