Tai Xiangxhou: Celestial Tales

Paul Kasmin Gallery is pleased to present Tai Xiangzhou’s inaugural solo-exhibition, Celestial Tales, at 297 10th Avenue from September 10 – October 3, 2015. This exhibition will debut monochromatic ink paintings from the Chinese artist’s most recent body of work.

Collected by major museums and institutions in the U.S., such as the Brooklyn Museum and the Arthur M. Sackler Museum at Harvard University, Celestial Tales marks Tai Xiangzhou’s premier exhibition at a contemporary gallery. Tai’s latest works reinterpret traditional Chinese ink painting through the study of meteorites and reveal an increasingly more vibrant and expressive style than his previous series, Genesis, which explored these traditions through biomorphic forms.

Under the tutelage of master ink painter Liu Dan for over a decade, Tai incorporates the old master’s tradition of landscape painting with a fresh approach incorporating the philosophies and ethos of today. Exclusively using paper created with 10th century techniques and Qianglong era ink, Tai believes that “to present landscape painting that meets modern tastes, we must start from the experience of modern society – by properly accessing the living spirit of art, researching the materials, techniques, medium and modern time-space experience. In short, we should not only keep alive traditional art, but also the tradition of art.” The artist’s lively brushstrokes exude an incredible energy and style that are uniquely his own.

Tai Xiangzhou (b. China, 1968) graduated with a Doctorate from the Art Academy of Quinghua and has studied ink painting under Liu Dan since 2005. He is currently in the collections of the Arthur M. Sackler Museum of Art and Archaeology at Peking University, Beijing, China; Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA; Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY; Nasher Museum of Art, Duke University, Durham, NC; Princeton University Art Museum, Princeton, NJ; Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT and has work on loan to the collection of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO. He currently lives and works in Beijing.