Persistence of Form

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Persistence of Form is a pair of artworks by Chinese artist He Ping. They are composed of Chinese ink on Chinese rice paper, set on canvas. They each measure 72cm x 72cm. This work was donated to Fondazzjoni Kreattività in 2016 and is now part of the Fondazzjoni Kreattività Art Collection.

The artist refeered that

E. V. Borg Review

They seem shadows, ghosts or phantoms and have decadent or consumptive properties. It is a deconstruction of matter to capture the essence, the spirit or soul through dynamic movement without losing primordial form: hence the title ‘Persistence of Form’.

He Ping’s expression is a fusion of Chinese calligraphy and a brand of European and American Abstract Expressionism the direct result of a continuous cultural and artistic exchange between the West and the Orient. His expression is spontaneous and instinctive as in gestural, automatic and action painting. It is an effusion of emotion, feeling and sentiment in line with the concepts of Pierre Soulages, Willem de Kooning, Hans Hartung and especially and particularly the calligraphic Frans Kline. In the West the movement towards abstraction was started by Wassily Kandinsky in 1910, a Russian émigré imbued with a spirituality stimulated by the mysticism of the East.

He Ping’s expression seems effortless. Standing in front of his easel he seems to dance or fence with his fast brush, marking the paper or canvas by swinging movements creating arcs of circles or linearity. His forms seem to swirl like straw in the wind. Casual, with hand in pocket he stains surface with ink or paint and at times pauses to think. His expression has an affinity with the simplicity in Joan Mirò’s works; his dexterity and emotional content echoes Jackson Pollock. There is an unnerving balance between the white of the paper/canvas and the black strokes of the brush, between the coloured squiggles and the background. It is a matter of practice. He seems to work all day and in the end experience pays. As in handwriting or calligraphy when practised incessantly it becomes second nature.

His work is imbued with the spirit within. It is animistic as the blue horses by Franz Marc. Naturally with He Ping the physical horse or model disappears and instead the essential spirit remains in the form of abstract arcs or lines. This continuous cultural and artistic exchange between the west and the orient started in time immemorial. The Chinese artist is conscious of the acute realism, naturalism and idealism of Masaccio and Jan Van Eyck’s vision and the mythical or real association of the latter with canvas and also quite familiar with the contrasts of a water-ink medium and oil paint; rice paper and canvas that has characterized this east-west dialogue.

E. V. Borg

Art critic & curator


Exhibitions

Persistence of Form has been displayed in the following exhibitions.