“Sailing ~ Afar — Liang Quan’s New Works” presented nearly 30 pieces of Liang Quan’s abstract works. Liang Quan was born in 1948 and ventured abroad in the early 1980s. As the first generation of abstract artists and through their efforts, these artists make us believe that it is feasible to engage in the creation of art in the vast field of western abstract art during the blank period of Chinese abstract art. Liang Quan can isolate form elements from our concrete life and historical memory and find interesting factors and other different units through art practices. He has been persistent in his attitude and heart when engaging in the creation of art. In the conversion between the conception of oriental and western abstract art, he used the Zen concept of “emptiness” in the experiment of abstract ink paintings, which enriches the world of abstract art through this position or starting point in a Chinese way.
Liang Quan’s recent works creates a discussion and exploration of the reality of details. During the process of consideration and conjecture towards details, old memories and emotions return to his mind. He explores a comprehensive spirit on the interest of details. Liang Quan uses a traditional method to mount rice paper on linen piece by piece, sometimes using ink or dyeing, and allowing the lines to display one by one. This type of collage and overlapping maintains the possibility of self-expansion. Similarly, the traditional and simple method of creation is changed completely by this attitude. It is an inner response to contemporary nihilism. Other works by Liang Quan which uses the material of tea strengthens the details. Tea itself must be tasted and it will penetrate into your body slowly. The artist uses this conscious way to incarnate the loveliness, simplicity and vitality of culture. Tea, as a painting material, penetrates into the rice paper slowly and then forms various traces in the end. When standing in front of a work of tea, people can keenly feel a relaxed rhythm and an unobjectionable expression. We can say that Liang Quan has created a slow-speed which can also contend with the rapid pace in modern times.
Liang Quan is one of the most important explorers in the fields of China abstract art and experimental ink and also an outstanding artist of contemporary art in China.