Calligraphy draws life from ink-oil tension
When the ink characters kept shrinking after the calligrapher drew them on an oil canvas, the audience at the Chambers Fine Art gallery in New York oohed and aahed at the effect as their cameras fired away. On the side, a video camera was recording the performance to complete the artwork.
The calligraphy demonstration took place at the opening of a new exhibition, entitled Guanshan Gathering, which runs through Feb 22. The show features collaborative works by Chinese scholar, curator and artist Zheng Shengtian and acclaimed Chinese calligrapher Wang Dongling.
"The two materials (water-based ink and oil canvas) work against each other, which is why when you write on the canvas, the effect will be drastically different from what normal Chinese calligraphy looks like," says Zheng, who is behind the idea of using the two conflicting materials.
