ROSS LEWIS

Ross Lewis is an American artist and arts educator who is internationally known for creating art that engages with the Chinese scholar-artist painting tradition. With a deep-seated fascination for China and its culture, in his twenties Lewis began studying Chinese landscape painting, calligraphy, under the tutelage of notable artist/collector C.C. Wang in New York. Lewis’ interest in Chinese art, history, and Mandarin language, brought him to China and Taiwan, where he studied mounting at the National Palace Museum, and over the course of a decade he had the rare opportunity to visit and exchange ideas with some of the modern masters of Chinese painting, such as Li Keran and Cheng Shifa. As a result of these experiences, Lewis has come to develop a distinct visual language, which bridges key aesthetic and philosophical sensibilities of the Eastern artistic traditions to his Western context.

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Transcending categorization by assimilating his training in both Western and Chinese painting, Lewis is now recognized for breaking new, universal ground in his artwork that evokes both traditions. In recent years, he has departed from the conventional use of the Chinese brush in the development of his Rope Painting Series, using instead an ink-soaked rope as his primary means of marking the paper surface. Richly textured and full of energy, Lewis’ rope paintings are a dazzling panoply of social, aesthetic and art-historical meaning. A personal diary of experiences, these paintings take on towering dimensions yet still evoke the subtle and sophisticated brushwork of literati painting. By developing these works into installation art, Lewis has been able to translate traditional literati concepts beyond the intimate personal space of ink painting, and into the public realm.

Ross Lewis’ first major academic solo exhibition in China, "Dancing with Rope", was held at Beijing's Today Art Museum in the Summer of 2015 and curated by distinguished art historian Dr. Shen Kuiyi. “Dancing with Rope” showcased approximately fifty works by the artist, including: his most recent “Rope Painting” series, a video installation of the artist’s monumental “Scroll Machine”, Lewis’ Chinese-landscape inspired paintings, archival materials of Lewis’ early studies with Chinese painters in Taiwan and China, as well as photographs and videos of Lewis’ installation projects from around the world. The exhibition was sponsored by the Embassy of the United States, Beijing. The exhibition traveled to the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute Museum in Chongqing and the Redtory Museum of Contemporary Art in Guangzhou in the Fall/Winter of 2015.
 

美国艺术家、艺术教育家李如侠长久痴迷于中国和中国文化，他的创作以结合中国文人传统而为国际所知。在艺术家二十几岁时，曾在纽约跟随著名画家和收藏家王己千学习中国山水和书法。为了追随其对中国艺术、历史、和语言的强烈兴趣，艺术家远赴台湾和大陆。在其近十年的学习生涯中，他曾在台北故宫博物院学习中国画装裱，并在大陆获得弥足珍贵的机会与近代中国画大师，如李可染、程十发等交流艺术心得。如今，李如侠已经发展出了其独特的艺术语言—将东方美学和哲学传统与其西方背景相结合。

李如侠的创作特点在于他融会贯通了中西传统。近年来，他摒弃了传统的使用毛笔作画的方法，发展出了其特有的将绳子浸于墨中，然后在纸表面进行创作的新方法。艺术家用这种方式创作出了其“绳画系列”。他的绳画作品不仅展现了丰富的机理、充满了能量，同时也包裹了丰富的社会、美学和艺术史价值。尽管画家的作品尺寸较大，但画家仍然秉承了细腻丰富的传统文人笔触，传达出其对日常的个人感受。另外，通过把这些绳画作品转换成装置艺术，画家已将传统的文人水墨画中注重个人表达的空间引申到了公共领域。

 “李如侠：墨绳之舞”是美国著名艺术家李如侠在中国举办的首次学术性个人展览。已于2015年夏天在北京今日美术馆进行首展。该展览由著名艺术史家沈睽一担当策展人。本次展览将集中展出艺术家的近五十件作品，包括艺术家近期创作的“绳画”系列、画家用绳子创作的规模巨大的卷轴器作品录像、灵感来自中国山水画的系列作品、早期在台湾和中国学习时的文档、以及画家在世界各地的装置艺术的照片和录像记录。本次展览由美国驻北京大使馆赞助。展览在2015年秋冬期间巡展至重庆的四圈美术学院与广州的红专厂。