Leo Gallery Hong Kong | Awaiting | Bian Qing Solo Exhibition

Leo Gallery is pleased to present “Awaiting”, Bian Qing’s first solo exhibition with us in Hong Kong on 6^th June, 2024, which will showcase the artist's latest series of still life paintings. 

 

In Bian’s recent paintings, he has been working on multiple series simultaneously. One of them consists of small-scale still life paintings. These compositions depict everyday objects such as green bell peppers and finger cots that appear to defy gravity, as if they are floating on a horizontal plane. Imagining ourselves bending down, we gaze at a pool of slowly flowing, translucent liquids, which form the surface of the painting. The objects within the composition seem to float, making it challenging to determine their sizes and weights. This obscures the initially apparent information, allowing varied interpretations. 

 

Bian's paintings should not be classified as sketches, which aims to depict objects in a close-to-reality manner, although this operation relies on the senses as a medium. Bian does not believe in a singular, idealized reality. However, it is difficult to label his paintings as "subjective". Bian does not attempt to express emotions. His unique working method lies in his grasp of the "rules of sensibility". In a self-narrative, he explains his creative process as follows, "...it's actually about arbitrary selection. When I choose an image, I feel that the image is calling out to me, and in that moment, I become that image."

Observing things and waiting for that specific moment when certain things call out to oneself is the opportunity for perceiving resonance and connection between oneself and the objects, he truly "sees" it from the chaotic world, resonating with a series of rules established by the artist through inner life experiences. If this explanation sounds too mystical, we can illustrate it through the naming process of language. When humans invented language, specific sounds were assigned to correspond to specific things, constructing an internal and external system of meaning. We can observe that Bian's artistic language tends to have this tendency of correspondence. However, at the same time, he keeps the "response" — his personalized divination method — in the ongoing process, more like a training of recognition: in a particular moment, environment, and state of mind that are perfectly aligned, he can choose the subject and approach for his painting. It will also change in accordance with the "response" in another moment, environment, and state of mind, altering the subject and approach in his painting. What he paints itself is the "response" of a specific moment, environment, and state of mind, but he does not intend to immortalize this correspondence relationship. The creation of painting is not a unidirectional process extending from the artist's inner world to the canvas; the external world also names and guides his work. This gives rise to the sense of rupture in his paintings.

 

If the concept of "comparative analogy" is seen as what Saussure referred to as the "signifier without an absolute signified", questioning the arbitrariness of "sensibility" may paradoxically highlight Bian's method of reflection on contemporary painting. From Socrates and Plato to Rousseau and even Lévi-Strauss’ perspective, there has always been a tendency to exaggerate phonetics and diminish the importance of writing. Derrida criticizes Saussure's "phonocentrism" by arguing that phonetics maintains and strengthens the "presence" of meaning, while simultaneously rejecting chaos and the diversity of thought. Bian's naming method is textual, pictorial, and, in the form of hexagram. Whether it is through words, symbols, or images, the visual text unfolds in multiple dimensions. It employs spatial lines in place of temporal succession. When Bian paints still life, art becomes a medium rather than an end in itself. His paintings are like written texts, consisting of scribbled annotations. For him, effective communication within the broadest possible scope is what matters.