Untitled No. 1212-06

Shen Chen

沈忱

Production date
2006

Object Detail

Media
acrylic on canvas
Measurements
triptych 152.5 x 351 cm
Notes
The triptych Untitled No.1212–06 (2006) reflects Shen’s interest in bringing together his knowledge of Chinese art history and philosophy with western abstract painting. Works from this period are ethereal and immersive. Almost monochrome, in subtle layerings of greys, creams and grey–blue, Shen’s application of washes of palest pigment forms vertical stripes of colour; these are interrupted on occasion by the subtle suggestion of a horizontal line at the place where the traces of the brush show the overlapping of one colour with another, almost but not quite the same. Shen composes his paintings with the simplest possible elements, using repeated, singular, separate brushstrokes that all move in the same direction. Colour, too, is severely limited, often making reference to Chinese ink in a monochrome palette of greys. Shen describes it as ‘an aesthetic appreciation of colourlessness’. Illusions of light and texture appear as if seen through mist. At first seemingly indebted to western mid–century Colour Field painting and Minimalism, these works are, in fact, deeply rooted in Chinese painting, recalling Song Dynasty works in which the empty spaces are as important as the forms depicted with ink and brush. The critic and curator Gao Minglu coined the term ‘maximalism’ to describe the abstract paintings that emerged in China towards the end of the twentieth century; both physical and metaphysical, they were imbued with spiritual notions of temporality and a rejection of showy excess. Shen Chen’s meditative canvases, stripped of all superfluous gesture, exemplify this tendency.
Accession number
2017.083
Artist details