Huang Yuxing - 20th Century & Contemporary Art & Design Day Sale in Association with Poly Auction Hong Kong Thursday, December 3, 2020 | Phillips

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  • "My works, which concern now will be a thing of the past. They are presented to the audiences honestly, with no sense of mystery. For me, the shapes attached with colours and feelings in my works, presented deeply, touch hearts. The mystery you feel is from the incomplete perception of the truth, but it would interest you to get into the truth which makes my works more attractive." —Huang Yuxing

    Born and based in Beijing, Huang Yuxing is a graduate of China’s prestigious Central Academy of Fine Arts. Favouring fluorescent hues, which he calls ‘the colour[s] of our generation’ for their ability to evoke ‘a kind of vigorous vitality being compressed or unleashed’, Huang Yuxing constructs fantastical, meditative scenes by applying thin, translucent layers of pure oil and acrylic pigments upon his canvases. i

     

    With the same swirling energy of his signature River series, Big Red Whirlpools epitomises Huang Yuxing’s ability to capture the inner tension between ‘the eternal cycles of time’ and ‘complexity of human nature’. ii Evanescent whirlpools are captured in gurgling waters, a poignant metaphor for the fleeting nature of time and life. Bright and piercing colours endlessly unfurl and dissolve in the fast-moving river, rendering the familiar into something neither abstract nor figurative. With no horizon visible, this profound portrait of space and light is an exploration of the psyche, a meditative dream space for emotional expression. 

     

    Claude Monet, Water Lilies, 1916, Collection of The National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo
    Claude Monet, Water Lilies, 1916, Collection of The National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo

    The swirling tones of mottled green, deep purple, cobalt blue and pastel pink overlap in a thick layer of pigments that evokes the shimmering paintings of light and water by the Impressionists. Obsessed with the colours reflected in rivers and lakes and shimmering in the sky, masters such as Claude Monet (see for example his famous Water Lilies) created powerfully observant and yet delicate canvases which immerse the viewer in a vibrant world without border or horizon. 

     

    Installation view, Shanghai, Antenna Space, Huang Yuxing: The river’s gobbled up trees and he’ll swallow you next, 2014
    Installation view, Shanghai, Antenna Space, Huang Yuxing: The river’s gobbled up trees and he’ll swallow you next, 2014

    Huang Yuxing continues his ascent in the international art world, and has been recently honoured with solo exhibitions at König Galerie, London (2019), Whitestone Gallery in Tokyo (2019) and Taipei (2018), as well as Galerie Perrotin, Hong Kong (2016).

     
    i Huang Yuxing quoted in Christie’s, Studio visit: Huang Yuxing, 14 October 2016, online.
    ii Huang Yuxing quoted in Whitestone Gallery, HUANG YUXING: Kingdom of Gold, 14 April 2018, online.

    • Provenance

      Antenna Space, Shanghai
      Acquired from the above by the present owner

    • Exhibited

      Shanghai, Antenna Space, Huang Yuxing Solo Exhibition: The River's Gobbled Up Trees and He'll Swallow You Next, 13 September —20 October 2014, p. 11 (illustrated)

Ж131

River | Big Red Whirlpools

2014
signed and dated ‘Huang Yuxing 2014’ lower left
acrylic on canvas
189.5 x 150.2 cm. (74 5/8 x 59 1/8 in.)
Painted in 2014.

Full Cataloguing

Estimate
HK$550,000 - 750,000 
€70,200-95,700
$70,500-96,200

Sold for HK$1,890,000

Contact Specialist

Danielle So
Associate Specialist, Head of Day Sale

20th Century & Contemporary Art & Design Day Sale in Association with Poly Auction

Hong Kong Auction 4 December 2020