Yan Shanchun, "Study #4," 2010

Yan Shanchun is among the first of a generation of artists who emerged from the academies when they were reopened after China's Cultural Revolution. Yan grew up in Hangzhou, a city built beside the West Lake, a source of inspiration for poets and painters for hundreds of years. Memories of the famous lake and celebrated viewing-points never left the artist and became the inspiration for much of his work.

Entitled "Study #4," this abstract composition depicts a scenic landscape along the Fuchun River, an area near his home town of Hangzhou. Yan draws forth evocative details of the setting through expressive brushwork and built up layers of ink, acrylic, and plaster. Scraping the surface down again and again, he creates veils of abstract imagery that at once obscure and reveal. Yan is well versed in ink painting as well as classic Chinese poetry which aim not to describe but to evoke through carefully observed details. That being said, he wears his learning lightly and his Fuchun paintings and studies are memorable for the manner in which they reveal so much while remaining self-effacing and reticent.

Mixed media on paper. Framed.