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MA Desheng, <Untitled>, Ink on paper, 95.5x178.5cm, 1984
MA Desheng, <Portrait of Women>, Ink on paper, 61x81cm, 1984
MA Desheng, <Portrait of Women>, Ink on paper, 45x65.5cm, 1984
[China] MA Desheng Untitled Portrait of Women Portrait of Women
A core member of the “The Stars” group, Ma Desheng was born in Beijing, where his childhood during the chaotic and unrest of the Cultural Revolution has made profound impacts on him. His earlier works were primarily woodblock prints, a voice of struggle and resistance as he strived for freedom. The monochromatic represents the hardship in everyday reality, contrasting with the carefully selected truth generated by the machines of political propaganda. In 1982, Ma embarked on an art practice that integrated abstract female figures with landscapes in his ink paintings. Visually voluptuous and powerful, these works on papers share similar traits with his woodblock prints: equally elegant brushworks, fluid and incise, allowing the contrast in monochrome to remain strong and clear. Meanwhile, Ma adopted the dispersive characteristics of ink on paper to represent the levels of transformation in the singularity of ink, emulating the shades of the body, a sense of weight, dimensionality and multiplicity. The abstract image rendered in the mode of traditional Chinese painting suggests the most fundamental existence of human kind. Due to high political pressures, Ma Desheng left China for Switzerland in 1985, and currently lives in Paris. |
