Fan Xueyi: Kúzlo tušu

Ink painting is a traditional Chinese art form. Water and ink are mixed on a grinding stone to create various shades of black, which are then applied with a brush to handmade paper made from bast fibres. The amount of water, the brush and the brushstroke itself influence the intensity and width of the painting.

Traditional ink painting usually combines an image with a poem. Creating an ink painting is like writing, which is why it is also called literary painting – academic painting – characterised by the lyricism of the hand. This differs greatly from Western painting, which focuses on geometry and perspective.

Ink painting focuses on the mood of poetry and a sense of nature. Between being and non-being, fullness and emptiness, and the yin and yang principles, it expresses the relationship between humankind and nature, the passage of time and space, and the unity of matter and its boundaries. It is closer to philosophy and culture. The beauty of ink painting is not merely visual; it is also spiritual.

Fan Xueyi loves the uncertainty of ink. It is like life: fluid, seemingly both there and not there. As the ink changes, the mind perceives the relationship between humankind and nature. The map of the heart is what the tip of the brush creates. In today’s deluge of multimedia, this traditional medium allows us to wander through mountains, rivers, trees and flowers – between heaven and earth. Gaining the power of wisdom through this process is simply an elegant way of life, a quest for the principle of Zen.