osage

Osage Atelier
4/F, Union Hing Yip Factory Bldg,20 Hing Yip Street, Kwun Tong,Hong Kong

CONTEMPORARY ART GALLERY

T: (852) 2389 8332
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Press Release

18 June 2013

Attention Arts and Features Editors

For immediate release

Liang Quan: Life Poetry of Mountain Tea Time &Kingsley Ng - Spring: A Homage to Liang Quan
Exhibitions extended to 8 July 2013
Osage Atelier
4/F, Union Hing Yip Building, 20 Hing Yip Street, Kwun Tong, Kowloon
Opening hours:Daily, 10:30 am -7:00pm

The exhibition, Life Poetry of Mountain Tea Time, currently presented at Osage Atelier hasreceived an unprecedented response from the general public. In order to accommodate morevisitors, Osage Gallery will extend its exhibition period for an additional three weeks, closing on 8July 2013.
This exhibition presents ten new abstract ink paintings and collages. Also featured is a special work
paying tribute to the artist, Spring: A Homage to Liang Quan, by Kingsley Ng. Liang Quan’s boldartistic practices have advanced the development of contemporary ink painting in China. His worksare rich in poetic language, focusing on line and abstraction to achieve balance in painting. His
contributions to Chinese painting are widely recognized. Recently, he was one of thirty-seven
Chinese artists selected to participate in The Origin of Dao: New Dimensions in Chinese
Contemporary Art at the Hong Kong Museum of Art, which opened this May.
We hope that you will take this final opportunity to view these works.

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ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Liang Quan (b. 1948, Shanghai, China) received a MFA degree from San Francisco Academy ofFine Arts in 1983. His work has been exhibited internationally, selected exhibitions include“Form, Idea, Essence, Rhythm—New Aspects of Contemporary East Asian Ink Painting “(TaipeiFine Art Museum, Taiwan, 2008), “Guangdong Contemporary Art Exhibition” (Guangdong Fine ArtMuseum, Guangzhou, China, 2008), “Ink, Not Ink—Chinese Contemporary Ink and Wash Exhibition”(Shenzhen Art Museum, China; Today Art Museum, Beijing, China, 2008), “The 3rd Chengdu
Biennial Exhibition” (Chengdu, China, 2007), “Solo Exhibition” (Zhu Qizhan Art Museum, Shanghai,China, 2006), “Ink and Paper” (Weimar Art Museum, Weimar, Germany, 2005), “An Open Era”
(National Fine Art Museum, Beijing, China, 2003), “The 1st Chengdu Biennial” (Chengdu, China,2001), “Shanghai Fine Arts Biennial” (Shanghai Art Museum, China, 1998), “Chinese Modern Print
Exhibition” (British Museum, London, UK, 1996) and “Chinese Modern Fine Art Exhibition” (Churchill
College, Cambridge University, UK, 1988). His artworks have been acquired by numerous private
collectors and public institutions, including British Museum, National Art Museum of China, HongKong Museum of Art and University of San Francisco. Liang lives and works in Shenzhen andHangzhou.
Kingsley Ng (b. 1980, Hong Kong) is an inter-disciplinary artist. His practice focuses on conceptual,site-specific, and community-engaging projects. He received postgraduate training at Le Fresnoy –National Studio of Contemporary Arts in France under the tutelage of renowned artists including
Alain Fleischer, Andrea Cera, Atau Tanaka and Gary Hill and graduated with the highest honors (lesfelicitation du jury à l'unanimité). He continued his studies with an MSc Sustainable Design degreefrom the University of Edinburgh in the UK and a BFA New Media Art degree from the Ryerson
University in Canada. Ng’s works have been featured in international exhibitions such as“Guangzhou Triennial” (Guangdong Art Museum, Guangzhou, China, 2012), “2nd Land Art Biennial”(National Gallery of Mongolia, 2012), “Echigo Tsumari Art Triennial” (Tsunan, Niigata, Japan, 2009)
and “NIME 06” (IRCAM- Centre Pompidou, Paris, France 2006). Ng lives and works in Hong Kong.

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ABOUT OSAGE GALLERYOsage Gallery was established in Hong Kong in 2004 and grew quickly to become one of Asia’s
largest commercial gallery groups. Osage has become well known in art circles in Asia and in theart world internationally for its uncompromising support for the most challenging and criticallythought-provoking contemporary art.
Osage Gallery is curatorially driven and devoted to the exhibition and promotion of international andAsian contemporary visual arts. It aims to be a catalyst for the creative expression of artists and theactive engagement of audiences by embracing a global, multidisciplinary, and diverse approach tothe creation, presentation and interpretation of the arts of our time. It examines the questions thatshape and inspire us as individuals, cultures and communities through high quality programs ofresearch, exhibition and publication.
Osage operates three major spaces in Hong Kong in the newly developing central business districtof East Kowloon. Osage Kwun Tong is in an industrial building which can be configured for a varietyof artistic encounters. The raw space allows for the exploration and presentation of experimental andinnovative works in all media – including performance, installation, interactive multimedia and motion
picture. Osage Atelier is an intimate furnished space and Osage Open combines 5,000 square feetof interior gallery space of with a 3,000 square foot outdoor terrace.
Osage Gallery has gained wide international recognition for the quality of its programs and was thefirst Hong Kong gallery to be invited to the Art Basel art fair in 2011 and to Frieze Masters in Londonin 2012.
Please visit www.osagegallery.com for more information.

Media Enquiry
Charmaine Lim
Sales & Marketing Executive
Tel:(852) 2389 8332
Email:
charmaine@osagegallery.com

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EXHIBITION FACTSHEET
Exhibition

Liang Quan: Life Poetry of Mountain Tea Time
Kingsley Ng – Spring: A Homage to Liang QuanArtist

Liang Quan (China), Kingsley Ng (Hong Kong)

CuratorDr. Xia KejunExhibition period

17 May 2013 – 8 July 2013

Exhibition venue

Osage Atelier

Address

4/F, Union Hing Yip Building, 20 Hing Yip Street, Kwun Tong, Kowloon

Opening hours

Daily, 10:30 am – 7:00 pm

Exhibition
description

OSAGE GALLERY is pleased to announce its first solo exhibition for the
Chinese artist Liang Quan, Life Poetry of Mountain Tea Time, featuring aseries of tea-themed recent works by this new ink artist.
Chinese ink painting must reconstruct its traditions, particularly the refined
cultural traditions of literati aesthetics. It must approach from the “Dao,”expanding contemporary ink painting through higher principles. The art ofLiang Quan has greatly expanded the possibilities of contemporary art
through his explorations of the naturalness and emptiness of ink painting.
Liang Quan’s mode of consciousness in ink is the repetition of minutefragments to realize empty tranquility. This is unimaginable withintradition. Liang Quan’s sensitivity towards the minute fragments, theprecise control of the encounters between ink and water, the stacking andadjustment of the various color fields and the light coatings of mist cometogether to form a polyphonic poetry, a painting comprising adjustments.
It does not seem, however, that the artist is the one doing the adjusting.
Instead, it is the “interval blankness,” that breathing “infra-white” thatinvisibly wanders between the strips of paper, that “minute white,” or that“tea color” or “soft yellow” that guides our eyes, or that young and supple
green. This infra-white and the color tones are chanting to themselves ina low hum, emitting a faintly drifting aroma.
The works in this exhibition are all connected to the daily activity ofdrinking tea. They bring painting back to everyday life, which in turndiscovers abstract poetry within everyday life. The tea-colored and softyellow tones allude to the color tones of time. By bringing the colors of
tea into ink painting, Liang Quan has effected an expansion of thematerials of ink, and infused it with the Zen of tea, reconstructing thetraditional form of viewing, a form of viewing that is more akin to savoring
the artwork. This is a form of “cultivating observation,” a reading thatprovides much food for thought.
This exhibition also includes the new media artwork Spring, which is atribute to Liang Quan by young Hong Kong artist Kingsley Ng. Theartwork uses water glasses to create the shadows of sundials using waterfrom various countries. They are clearly marked with the date andlocation (France, Italy, New Zealand, etc.), and serve as a response to
the temporality of time through the changing qualities of light from4morning to night, alluding to the temporal metaphor in light and shadow.
The title Spring echoes the relationship between spring water and tea, ayin-yang dialogue that is unique to Chinese culture, a lament on passingand clinging. Water is the clearest material under the sun, and with thepoeticism and lowly demeanor of its surface, Liang Quan’s art opens up
infinite tension upon an almost nonexistent surface, inspiring thebeginner’s eye of the young artist and evoking a response to this tranquil
joy of the surface. The encounter between water and tea is thenourishment of blankness, nourishing space and life with blankness,
emitting a faint glow from the picture. This is the marriage of qi and light,
an art of time.

5PRESS IMAGES

Liang QuanLittle Tea House – 12051
2012
Tea, ink, color, xuan paper collage
90 x 60 cm
Image courtesy of the artist and Osage Gallery

6Liang Quan
The Tea Diaries – 1205
2012
Tea, ink, color, xuan paper collage
120 x 90 cm
Image courtesy of the artist and Osage Gallery

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Liang Quan
Days of Drinking Tea – 1205
2012
Tea, ink, color, xuan paper collage
45 x 60 cm
Image courtesy of the artist and Osage Gallery

8Liang Quan
Tea Drinking Notes - 12051
2012
Tea, ink, color, xuan paper collage
90 x 120 cm
Image courtesy of the artist and Osage Gallery9