SCROLL MACHINE

INK ASIA 2016

Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Center, 16-18 December

New York-based installation artist Ross Lewis has been invited by Hong Kong-based Curator Eric Leung Shiu Kee to participate in the curator’s “Ink Plus” exhibition at the Ink Asia HK 2016 art fair (16-18 December). The exhibition will explore artistic works that challenge the very definition, means and methods of ink painting.

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For this exhibition, Lewis will create a 9-meter scroll using an ink-soaked rope and collage techniques as his means of marking the paper’s surface. The scroll is then placed in motion using a mechanized device made of wood, an approach that allows the artists to explore notions of time and space.

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The work is inspired by a poem attributed to Northern Song dynasty calligrapher Mi Fu, entitled “Pavilion of Various Views (Duojing luo). Says Lewis: “Mi’s brushwork is idiosyncratic, wonderfully complex and inventive. His collapsing and capricious forms create a sense of movement and expressiveness.”

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Lewis’ work is set in motion - not just by the mechanical device he employs - but by his rich texturing and energetic handwork. These rope paintings dazzle the eye and engage the spirit with a panoply of social, aesthetic and art-historical meaning.

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Scroll Machine No. 1, 2016

Ink (applied by rope) and collage on paper 9-meter scroll set in motion by a 1x1.8-meter wood mechanism