Born in 1983 in Chengdu, China, Hao Liang attained both a BFA and an MFA in his specialisation of Chinese Painting at the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute. Currently based in Beijing, the artist has developed a body of work that brings the ancient technique of Chinese ink wash painting into the 21^st century. Bridging formal treatment, cultural symbols and art-historical allusions between the East and the West, Hao’s aesthetic undertaking marks his participation in the search for a modernity intrinsic to Chinese culture. Whilst employing a particular mode and methodology of working, his interest in accommodating variegated cultural resources reinvigorates and extends the conventions of ink wash painting.

Combining a sensitive application of ink, a surreal play on multiple perspectives in his scroll paintings as well as a rigorous consistency of tonal pallor and translucency, Hao’s system of working is a laborious process.Often embedded in his work is the shan shui (Chinese landscape) consciousness of the harmonious relationship between humankind and nature. Hao’s formal and theoretical concern with changes and shifts taking place in our reality and living environment lends a critical approach towards artistic portrayals of the altered relations and conditions of nature. Situating such a perspective within his range of silk handscrolls, portraits and landscape works, the artist responds to differences in Eastern and Western orientations of a painting, and further, of the world; of the cosmos. Working with a creative system that enables him to traverse across the past and present, Hao’s chiasmus compositions trigger the sublime across his modern viewers, regardless of their familiarity with historical motifs and poetic traditions.

Hao’s works have been widely exhibited in both solo and group settings, including: Hao Liang: Portraits and Wonders, Gagosian, New York (2018); 1977–2017: Le Centre Pompidou fête ses 40 ans, Centre Pompidou, Paris (2017); Streams and Mountains without End: Landscape Traditions of China, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (2017); 57th Biennale di Venezia, Venice (2017); Hao Liang: Eight Views of Xiaoxiang, Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing (2016); Hao Liang: Aura, Bonnefantenmuseum, Maastricht, Netherlands (2016); Bentu, Chinese artists at a time of turbulence and transformation, Foundation Louis Vuitton, Paris (2016); Editing the Spectacle: The Individual and Working Methods Post-Mediatization, Hive Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing (2015); Devotion to Ink, Hong Kong Maritime Museum and Galerie Ora-Ora, Hong Kong (2014); Mind is Outer Space, Casey Kaplan, New York (2013); and The Chinese Scholar – Ink Paintings and Works of Art at Fuller Building, New York (2012). His works are also held in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Kadist, San Francisco; and Bonnefantenmuseum, Maastricht, Netherlands, among others.

 

弇山園 Yanshan Garden, Watercolour on photograph, 2015