Abstract art meets traditional ink-wash

"Torrential Passion," an exhibition featuring nearly 70 canvases created by Chinese-American artist Cheu Yu Tian is now on show at the Deke Erh Art Center.
Born in 1935 in Huizhou in South China's Guangdong Province, Cheu grew up in Singapore. At the age of 27, he went to New York to further his studies in art.
"The artists who impress me most are Cezanne, Matisse, Picasso and Jackson Pollock," Cheu says.
His early works were strongly structural in nature and took the form of abstract collages executed in oils and textile fragments he chose randomly from used garments.
In the mid-1990s, he began to revert to a sphere of artistic pursuit which has its roots in traditional Chinese ink-wash paintings. His intention was to focus on the intrinsic abstract elements of the painting space, its energy, nuances and the interplay created by those elements.
Many of his works display intense originality with and intriguing delicacy of creation.
To ensure that the colors are uniquely his own and that they will play a crucial role in the overall composition of each work, the coloring of the textile fragments on Cheu's canvases are entirely the result of his choice and application of different pigments.
This approach has given him a distinct advantage: It has allowed Cheu considerable room for variety during the actual process of painting. Cheu's use of extremely subtle colors in his works also have and enormously sensitive, tactile quality.
His interpretation of nature contains abstract hints of nature's grandeur, moods and infinity.
Some of his canvases achieve their tremendous impact through atmospheric effects made possible by the interplay of spontaneous and energetic calligraphic brush strokes and the splashes of the colors that he has created on his palette.

Date: through September 11, 9am-5pm
Address: Bldg 2,210 Taikang Rd
Tel: 021-6415-0675

<Shanghai Daily> Sept.2, 2005