Wang Huangsheng

The Universe series of works has not only the elegant style and the stretch of spirits, but also portraying the classical tradition and fantasy lyrical modern expression temperament; the series of works express the magnificent Chinese culture. You can feel the universe in the cup and how broad-minded the artist is.[1]

Wang Huangsheng's Serene belongs to his Flower series that is born of his pursuit of “freedom”. The “flowers” are given expression in different forms, like colors, details-adding techniques, water streaks, ink flavor, lines, taste, etc. In this sense, the form, tangible or concrete, becomes less important, and the artist's feeling and understanding about life and glory get highlighted.[2]

After 2010, Wang shifted to more abstract practice. His Moving Visions series and Lines Visions series reabstract the already abstract “line” and “stroke” and bring them into interaction with contemporary visual cognition in similar conditions. Moving Visions series stresses the concept of “cultivation” in traditional Chinese culture and aims to build a passage that connects contemporary culture with human being's ultimate goal. “cultivation” involves culture, moral character, artistic conception and skills, not excluding control and self-control; while “freedom” refers to non-interference, being unrestrained and uninhibited, and more importantly, accomplishment of spiritual freedom from any restraint. Between the two seemingly contradictory extremes there is probably the tension and significance of life, work and art.[3]

The series of Lines Visions series is a brave attempt for Wang Huangsheng to think about the ink creation and social intervention. The series were drawn on newspaper media of Southern Weekly and Reference News to reflect on the current social situation. By applying ink lines on the newspaper, Wang Huangsheng redefined how we read and also integrated his artist practice with social reality.

In painting series Trace Vision, Metaphor Vision and The Wall Wang experiments with gauze, bandage and rubbing. The traces gauze residues leave and the ink as well as the reality and cultural information between the newspaper and the rice paper become a metaphor for harm and protection, restoration and sublimation. The fine, delicate, sensitive imprints form a rich and subtle contrast with the rich and wild lines and shapes and ink stains.

The Wall features a visible or invisible wall of gauze imprints of isolation and self-protection to imply injury, pain, separation, blood, care, and cure. The texture of gauze rubbing and the shades and humidity of ink echo the delicate and fine rubbing traces on a large-size tableau, also including the imprints of randomly scattered gauze bits, so as to give embodied expression on the visual and psychological levels.

Metaphor Vision, a new series in 2017, is a rubbing on gauze painted red. There are also biblical quotes about human self-reflection to express a complex feeling of harm and atonement.

2022:Wang Huangsheng：Remoteness and River(He Xiangning Art Museum,Shenzhen,China);Wang Huangsheng：Tracing back to the Source of Zhujiang touring exhibition 1984/2020 Guangzhou Station(Guangzhou Library,Guangzhou,China);

2021:Wang Huangsheng：Tracing back to the Source of Zhujiang touring exhibition 1984/2020 Guizhou Station(Guizhou Art Museum, Guiyang,China);[4]

2020:Wang Huangsheng: Breathe In/Out (Long Museum West Bund,Shanghai,China); Wang Huangsheng：Tracing back to the Source of Zhujiang touring exhibition 1984/2020 Guilin Station (Guangxi Normal University Press Art Museum, Guilin, China);

2018: Wang Huangsheng: Boungary/Space (Guangdong Museum of Art, Guangzhou, China);

2017:Wang Huangsheng: Boungary/Space (Minsheng Art Museum, Beijing, China);

2015:The Garden of Mystery: Wang Huangsheng Art Exhibition (Suzhou Museum, Suzhou, China); Wang Huangsheng: Roaming | Apparition (Lin & Lin Gallery, Taipei, China); Flux: Wang Huangsheng (Pearl Lam Galleries, Shanghai, China); Wang Huangsheng: Unbroken Line (October Gallery, London, Uk); Blade & Line: Wang Huangsheng New Ink Artworks (CAFA International Gallery, Beijing, China);

2014: On the Run: Wang Huangsheng Solo Exhibition (Redtory Museum of Contemporary Art, Guangzhou, China); Roming on the Edges: Wang Huangsheng Works (The Art Museum of Nanjing University of the Arts, Nanjing, China);

2013: The Lines to Freedom (Schiller Gallery, Heidelberg, Germany); Boundless: Wang Huangsheng’s Works (2009–2013) (Zhejiang Art Museum, Hangzhou/Hubei Museum of Art, Wuhan, China); Roaming | Apparition (WiE KULTUR, Berlin, Germany); Wang Huangsheng: Look into the Distance (Sunshine Space, Shantou, China);

2012: Post · Refined · Joy -- Art Exhibition of Wang Huangsheng (Baiyaxuan 798 Art Center, Beijing, China); 2007: Heaven and Earth · Carefree -- Wang Huangsheng Ink Painting Exhibition (Guangdong Museum of Art, Guangzhou, China);

2006: Heaven and Earth · Carefree -- Wang Huangsheng Ink Painting Exhibition (National Art Museum of China, Beijing, China); Growth in Spring/Stillness in Autumn -- Wang Huangsheng Art Works Exhibition (The University of New South Wales, Australia), etc.

2021:The Logic of Painting: China Central Academy of Fine Arts Faculty Works Exhibition(Xinjiang Art Museum,Wulumuqi,China); Round&Develop: Academic Invitation Exhibition of Comprehensive Material Painting(CAFA Art Museum,Beijing,China); Interspace (Block14 Level1 CAFA ,Beijing, China)；

2020:Harmo-Power the First Jinan International Biennale (Shandong Art Museum,Jinan, China)；

2018:2018 Invitational Exhibition of Chinese Contemporary Artists (Aimer Museum,Beijing,China)；

2017: A Fine Line (ART100 New York, New York, U.S.); Annual Review of China Contemprorary Ink Painting 2016–2017 (Ucity Art Museum of GAFA, Guangzhou, China)；

2016: The Exhibition of Annual of Contemporary Art of China, 2015 (Beijing Minsheng Art Museum, Beijing, China)；

2015: The Civil Power (Beijing Minsheng Art Museum, Beijing, China); CHINA 8: Chinese contemporary art in Rhine ruhr (Rhine ruhr, Germany); Calligraphic time and space: Abstract Art in China (Power Station of Art, Shanghai, China)；

2014: Rendering the Future -- Chinese Contemporary Ink Painting Exhibition (Asia Art Center, Beijing, China); DAJIA · Chinese Painting Biennial of Contemporary Lingnan · 2014 (Poly Art Museum, Beijing, China); Spiritual as Mountains (Pearl Lam Galleries, Hong Kong, China); Confronting Anitya -- Oriental Experience in Contemporary Art (Fred Villa Art Center, Bonn, Germany / Yuan art museum, Beijing, China)；

2013: Confronting Anitya -- Oriental Experience in Contemporary Art (Palazzo Michiel Palace, Venice/ MAGI’900 Museum, Bologna, Italy); The Taste of Ink (Amy Li Gallery, Beijing, China)；

2012: Original Forms of Chinese Water Ink Painting (Sanchuan Modern Art Museum, Nanjing/Tianjin Art Museum, China); Visionary: Contemporary Fine Art from China Central Academy of Fine Arts (Wimbledon College of Art, Art@GoldenSquare, London, England / CAFA Art Museum, Beijing, China); 4th Taipei International Modern Ink Painting Biennial (Taichung Cultural & Creative Industries Park International Exhibition Hall, CKS Memorial Hall Taipei, Taiwan, China); Not Only Paper· China -- Japan Paper Art Exhibition First Round (CAFA Art Museum, Beijing, China)；

2010: The Enduring Art of China (Montclair State University Gallery, Montclair, United States)；

From 1994 to 2009, Wang Huangsheng's paintings were selected for The 8th, 9th and 11th National Art Exhibition in China

Organized and Curated 2005 Guang Zhou Photo Biennial (Guangzhou, China), Humanism in China ----A Contemporary Record of Photography (Guangzhou, China); The first International Art Biennale(Beijing, China, 2003–2004), Fu Luofei Sketches about the People(Beijing, China); 2008 China: 20 Years of Ink Experiment(Guangzhou, China); Individual and Society in Art(Guangzhou, China); 1998 Southern context -The first invitational exhibition of the contemporary Chinese Artists(Mantua, Italy), Urban Impression A Collection of Contemporary Experimental Ink wash Drawings (Guangzhou, China), A Dialogue with Henry Moore Exhibition of Contemporary Chinese Sculpture; 1997 Concern To Reality and Transformation of Art Language ---The Specialized Collection of The China Fine Arts of the Early 20s’ ( Guangzhou, China) etc.

In the eight years of working as a museum director, Wang Huangsheng planned many important exhibition, include: Social Sculpture: Beuys in China, The 3rd CAFAM Biennial Negotiating Space: I Never Thought You Were Like That,[5] The Second CAFAM Biennale: Curating as Gesture, Super-Organism CAFAM Biennale, etc. Wang Huangsheng made great effort in aspects of art curatorial methodology, for example, the fieldwork-nominated curatorial method is applied in two future exhibitions of CAFAM, the innovative model used by the third & second CAFAM Biennial, etc. The museum also focus on the research of the relationship between the history of art and reality, for example, a series of academic activities and research on collections of “National Beiping Art School – CAFA”, the discovery, proof and research on Li Shutong's oil painting, research and exhibitions of the collections in the “young age of fine arts in new China”, etc., enriching and deepening the history and collections of CAFA, as well as research on the history of Chinese contemporary art.[6]