Provenance
Private Collection, Asia
Christie's, Shanghai, 24 October 2015, Lot 309
Acquired at the above sale by the present ownerExhibited
Hong Kong, Galerie Perrotin, Flame And The Sea, Gao Weigang, Huang Yuxing, Ouyang Chun, 18 July - 17 August 2013
Literature
Shanghai, Antenna Space, Huang Yuxing, 2014 (illustrated)
Shanghai, Minsheng Art Museum, Alluvial: Huang Yuxing 2005-2015, 2015 (illustrated)Catalogue Essay
Born in Beijing in 1975, the prominent young Chinese contemporary artist Huang Yuxing quickly rose in the art scene after graduating from the Central Academy of Fine Arts’ Mural Painting Department in 2000. His works speak to the transience of time and frequently use natural elements resembling rivers, trees, bubbles and meteors as his subject. River belongs to a renowned body of works in which the artist has completely abandoned figuration to focus on the painting language itself, exploring the process of building up colours through repeated layering of thin, translucent paint onto the canvas, in order to bring up new visual experiences.
Claude Monet
Water Lilies, 1916
Collection of The National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo
River communicates a meditative dream space, the juxtaposition of vibrant and psychedelic neon hues interplay to form swirling motions on the surface of the water, imbuing the canvas with a heightened sense of vibrancy. The mottled green, pastel purple, dark blue and crimson tones overlap to form thick coating of pigments that recalls Claude Monet’s famous Water Lilies - the pioneering Impressionist master’s enduring subject - in which he had fully unleashed the vitality of colours to capture the changes in light. Huang manifests Monet’s mesmerizing palette with a contemporary twist, he prefers the bright and piercing fluorescent shades because it is ‘the colour of our generation, there is no such colour system in traditional easel paintings. It is special, like a kind of vigorous vitality being compressed or unleashed. This was the colour and the feeling that I needed.’
Huang Yuxing
River (detail), 2013
A visual horizon divides the painting in half to create linear perspective, bringing a sense of balance and serenity to the composition. The distorted trees appear to melt and float in the background, while the psychedelic bubbles glow on the water surface, dissolving and vibrating, the fleeting nature of these fragile bubbles contemplates the flow of time, which contrasts with the permanence embodied in the constantly flowing river. Huang chose river as one of his favourite subjects because ‘it defines the shape of time in my mind's eye,’ engaging with the elusive concept of time with personal sensibility, the artist skillfully captures the same wisdom found in ancient aphorism that ‘everything is in flux’ in this work.
Huang Yuxing’s highly sought-after practice has received recognition internationally, recently, he has been 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).
Ж165
River
2013
signed and dated 'HUANG Yuxing [in Pinyin] 2013' lower right
acrylic on canvas
142 x 230 cm. (55 7/8 x 90 1/2 in.)
Painted in 2013.
Estimate
HK$600,000 - 800,000
€65,400-87,200
$76,900-103,000
Sold for HK$1,375,000
Danielle So
Associate Specialist, Head of Day Sale
20th Century & Contemporary Art & Design Day Sale
Hong Kong Auction 9 July 2020
110
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193
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194
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