Oil on canvas

200 × 160 cm. 78 3/4 × 63 in.

Signed in pinyin and dated on bottom right

LITERATURE
2015, Qinqi, New Star Press, Beijing, p. 154-155
EXHIBITED
8 Nov – 30 Dec 2014, Qin Qi Solo Exhibition, Platform China Contemporary Art Institute, Beijing

PROVENANCE
Platform China Contemporary Art Institute, Beijing
Acquired directly by present important private Asian collector from the above

The "Thorny" Brush, the Spark of Adventure
Qin Qi's Artistic Allegory Painting Brushes against a Blue Background

As a pioneering representative of Chinese artists born in the 1970s, Qin Qi has developed an avant-garde, dynamic and metaphorical visual expression based on inheriting the solid shaping technique learned from Lu Xun Academy of Fine Arts and established a bold and outstanding "heterotopia world". After holding a large solo exhibition in Shanghai Minsheng Museum in 2010, he became a leading figure in Chinese new painting. In 2014, he had a solo exhibition at Platform China Contemporary Art Institute, which brought him wide attention. This time, we present a rare masterpiece, Painting Brushes against a Blue Background , from this exhibition.

Classic "Brush" Metaphor, Reconstruction of the Art World

Since 2010, Qin Qi has carried out a new exploration of the context of objects and images. He transfers the familiar things around him, such as meat, fruit, painting materials and tools, from the original environment to the canvas world outside of everyday experience and breaks common sense with metaphor to present incredibly profound artistic thinking.

As the most important tool for artists to create, the element of "brush" has been heavily presented in Qin Qi's works since 2010, regarded as "the self-figurative existence of the painter's identity". In the painting Painting Brushes against a Blue Background, he inserted the elements of "brushes" into the cactus in the pot. Qin Qi fully exaggerated the features of the cactus utilizing the appearance of brushes. As he said, "This kind of non-inevitable association produced a non-visual abstract form." The deconstructed objects establish a new image language in the connection like an adventure, thus introducing internal thinking with symbolic meaning.

Wonderland, the Energy of the Essence of Life

Similar to the conception in his paintings Cactus and Stabbed Paintbrushes painted in 2010, in Painting Brushes against a Blue Background painted in 2012, Qin Qi again put the cactus pot with paintbrushes in the centre. However, the background is covered by contrasting colours of interweaved sapphire blue and orange instead of the previously empty pale grey. These two colours are borrowed from the hues of the sky and the earth, creating a world of visual tension in the broad painting. Following the growth direction of the paintbrushes on the cactus, the impressionistic multilayered kinetic strokes jump from the ground to the sky, just like fireworks. They intensify the turbulence of colours and create an intense conversation between the surface and the inside. The cactus pot glows with a sense of life as if it is lit. The space in the painting seems to be in the process of being created all the time. The energetic overlay of paint and the unfolding image of the brushes complement each other, and a strong breath of life emerges.

The Dominant Brush of Art, the Painter's Creative Heart

Qin Qi's practice of using paintbrushes imitating cactus is closely related to his painting experience. In this work, the form of cactus, derived from the way of splicing, reflects the key leading role played by brushes in the development of art history. The cactus in the painting comes from artistic inspiration and exists on the actual canvas because of the creative imagination. The brushes are grafted with the context of the cactus to create a unique symbolic expression. The poem on the flowerpot is: "People have eternal drunkness, and poetry has an everlasting life", which seems to be the footnote intentionally left by the painter. How to make art like poetry has become the topic of his concern. Just like Qin Qi's actual situation: "being defined" at all times but constantly "breaking away from the definition". The artistic imagination and the colour of life, only in the hands of the artist's fantastic encounter, can flash bright sparks of colourful inspiration!

Price estimate:
HKD: 550,000 - 850,000
USD: 70,100 - 108,300

Auction Result:
HKD: 696,000