Warm Wind from Shimalaya

Although quite different from the art of the Lingnan school and Chao Shao-An, the paintings of Ming Ren also reflect an artist’s negotiation between Chinese and Western painting. Ren came of age during the Cultural Revolution, and his early training in painting was in Socialist Realism before learning about and experimenting in more contemporary styles. Since the late 1980s he has traveled extensively and lived both in China and the United States. His paintings, like this imagined mountain landscape high in the Himalayas (ximalaya in Chinese), are created with an element of chance. Ren pours ink and colors in a manner that can never be completely controlled, resulting in “happy accidents.” The result is more impressionistic than scientific, inviting the viewer to meditate on these accidental forms that evoke the natural world, the cosmos, traditional Chinese landscapes, and energetic abstract painting.