Ink and colour on paper

55.5×75.5 cm. 21 7/8×29 3/4 in

Signed in Chinese and English, located in English on upper right

LITERATURE
1994, Chao Chung-Hsiang Posthumous Work Exhibition, National Taiwan Museum of Art, Taichung, p.86
PROVENANCE
Apollo Gallery, Taipei
Private Collection, Asia

Deep Love for His Land
Shiy Dejinn （1923-1981） is unquestionably an indispensable figure in the history of Taiwan’s art scene. Born in Sichuan, he studied under the tutelage of two artists, Pang Xunqin and Lin Fengmian, who solidified his aspiration to pursue a career in the arts. He later came to Taiwan to avoid the war that was then raging in mainland China, and he since became enamored with the tropical island, coming to view it as his home away from home. It was here that he began his short but brilliant artistic career.
An Inversion of Water and Light is a watercolor painting that Shiy Dejinn completed in 1980. The lake and sky divide the pictorial plane transversely into almost two equal halves, forming formidable visual balance and symmetry. Looking straight at the painting, one can see a very small white house against a row of trees； this reverberates against the light-yellow barn and ink-washed woods in the distance on the right side of the canvas. In the reflection on the water, the contours of the white house are vaguely discernible, but other objects fade into undulating waves of light gray and blue. The painting’s seemingly bland scenery conceals a dim and secluded poesy. Under Shiy Dejinn’s brush, this commonly visible countryside scenery of southern Taiwan has become a historical record of the era, and at the same time, it also depicts a beautiful scene of the harmonious coexistence of human beings and nature, bearing witness to the artist’s deep sentimental attachment to the island of Taiwan.

Price estimate:
HKD: 200, 000 - 300, 000
USD: 25, 600 - 38, 500

Auction Result:
HKD: 330,400