Taipa Village Cultural Association is currently hosting the first Chinese ink exhibition by Macau-based Portuguese artist Rui Rasquinho, entitled Who heeds a man who sits and wails out in the cold?
The selected works for this exhibition are based on a series of illustrations published in local Portuguese newspaper Hoje Macau over a seven-year period, from 2012 to 2019. The newspaper was publishing Chinese texts including poems, philosophies and critical essays by a number of renowned Chinese literati, translated into Portuguese by Rui Cascais. Rasquinho undertook the task of illustrating the texts on a weekly basis.
“The illustrations for Hoje Macau are Giclée prints using mixed media, including Chinese ink, charcoal, and some other kinds of black ink. There is a predominance of Chinese ink, which, in the beginning was to make a direct connection to the theme, and for the pleasure of trying new non-classical expressions with it. It offers a lot of fluidity and various shades, from gray to black,” Rui explains. “It was a weekly project, so I had to work quickly, so I would do the work, scan it and join it all together with digital tools.”
The texts are by such authors as Li He (790-816 AD), Wang Chong (27-100 AD), Huainanzi (139 BC) and Wen Tzu (742 AD). The title of the exhibition comes from the stanza of a poem entitled Let Wine Be Brought In! written by Li He.
“I’m not a literati or a scholar, so I was not familiar with this genre of literature at first, and probably, by myself, I wouldn’t have dug into it as deeply,” admits Rui.
But once he started to read the works and interpret them visually, he naturally found himself inspired by the texts, and also by classical Chinese painting styles and techniques.
“I’ve been in China for 20 years, but I never thought as a gweilo that I would try to appropriate a Chinese styleactually that type of approach irritates me a lot – but it just happened naturally, first because of the work I was commissioned to do, and then I was just caught by it. In a way it’s a more honest approach. I was in love with the style, but again, this is not Chinese painting, but of course it’s inspired,” the artist explains.
“The starting point was traditional Chinese painting, but I wasn’t trying to emulate it because I’m not a master, I couldn’t do that. In order to paint like that you have to study and practice for years. So instead, I used some aesthetic references and tried to do my own style. There’s also some western classical references as well, and comic references. They’re not obvious but there’s a lot.”
Rui’s work on this artistic project for seven years ultimately led him to experiment more freely with Chinese ink, resulting in the second part of the works on display, a series of fold-out books in which the artist explores a more abstract style.
“The folding books emanated from this series. I had done so many of these works in this style that I started exploring it more by myself in a more free way. So that’s why I’m displaying them together in the same space, so people can see the link, between illustrations based on texts, and something thatis totally free and towards abstraction,” he notes. “This is a product of exploration and process, there’s a hesitation between figurative and abstract. Not a final prod- uct, more like a process of learning and investigations of abstract.”
“The fact that it’s in a foldable book, it can assume both forms, and this means that the drawing is not always present. If you want you can take it to obscurity and fold it away. I like the exposure of art in those terms,” he adds.
João Ó, President of Taipa Village Cultural Association’s executive board and the curator of the exhibition, has known Rasquinho for many years and has watched his progression and growth as an artist.
“When you are given a task to illustrate Chinese poems, you can’t just illustrate with a Western style, you have to give it some Chinese elements. I want to show people how Rui has come to this point in his art work. We want to show the process. This is exactly the point where he jumps from an illustrator to an artist,” notes João. “Instead of just showing the abstract works, Rui also wanted to show the other pieces from the newspaper project, and when I saw them together I completely saw the link, the evolutionary line between them. So what you see here is this process of transition,” he adds.
In July, Rui will hold another exhibition at the Orient Foundation, with some new works, demonstrating a further evolution of his abstract pieces.
“Literature makes you think, so of course, this project gave me insights and revelations, and a greater appreciation of Chinese culture. This is the beginning of a particular artistic direction for me and it will continue to transform into something else,” Rui predicts.
Information:
12/04 – 3/07/2020 12pm-8pm
Taipa Village Art Space
No. 10 Rua dos Clerigos, Taipa, Macau
Admission: Free
www.taipavillagemacau.org.mo
