The Qian painterly voice

Abstract

My research explores my Chinese background experiences of immigration to Australia within the visual domain of Ba-Gua energies dialoguing with selected European painterly influences (especially Jenny Saville) related to Australia, painterly and new ink tradition methods, contemporary Chinese and Chinese-Australian painting unified by Ba-Gua spiritual ideas, through a methodology utilizing impasto and line informed by Chinese and European Romantic opera, all expressed within a contemporary version of Yan Li-ben's emperor imagery, especially related to Qian or heaven. In this work and others in the folio, I use Chinese Ba-Gua (Qian) and Confucian philosophy to explore Chinese and Western artistic influences and Ba-Gua energies dialoguing with Chinese-Australian visual influences and Peking Opera and contemporary Australian music. I explored the artistic influences that have contributed to the extended sensation or synaesthesia of my painting across the tactile, sonic and optical fields. I drew across sources from ancient Chinese Emperor paintings and ink tradition alongside contemporary British and Australian layered paint and anatomical techniques, as well as draw from Renaissance masters. In addition, this research explores the contemporary themes, which have also influenced my work including intercultural contemporary Australian music. The originality of this approach in my cultural artistic fusion is that the Daoist-like movement of spirit and body (Chou, "Wenren and Culture" 2004), expressed within Ba-Gua philosophy, becomes a kinetic unifying factor across a Chinese multi-artform practice. My creative folio included paintings and films which provide evidences for an analysis of both the common point of visual dialogue and cultural realities within these Chinese-Australian confluences towards expression of my artistic identity or voice, which I describe as Qian 'painterly voice'. This 'painterly voice' has five main areas of investigation: firstly, English painter Jenny Saville's intersection of painterly impasto and Chinese calligraphical line; secondly, the techniques of impasto and line related to Peking opera and Italian lyric opera; thirdly, ancient Chinese painter Yan Li-pen's iconic emperor series extended to Australia; fourthly, the intersections of the Chinese multi-artform practice where calligraphically line, watercolour suggestiveness, and painterly impasto layering work as synergies and counterpoints to contemporary Australian composition within several music-theatre works; and finally, Ba-Gua ideas into contemporary Chinese artistic ideas in China (Qian and family order within Zhang Xiaogang) and Australia (Chinese-Australian Lindy Lee's exploration of Zen Buddhism). Ultimately, this research examines how each of these factors culminates in my own personal philosophy and Qian 'painterly voice'.

Date of Award	2018
Original language	English