Chambers Fine Art is pleased to announce the opening on May 25, 2013 of Return to the Source by Cai Jin. This exhibition of works from her Landscape series will be her first exhibition at the gallery. Widely recognized as one of the most distinctive painters of her generation, Cai Jin first attracted critical attention in the early 1990s with her paintings of merenjiao (translated as “Banana Plant”). Inspired by a dying plant that she saw in her native Anhui province in 1990, she has painted close to 400 variations on this theme between 1991 and the present day. This continued throughout her stay in New York between 1997 and 2007.
Even at a time, however, when the lush vegetation of the banana plant mostly filled the surface of the canvas, there were occasional glimpses of the background, patterned and textured surfaces that gave rise to several small paintings that she referred to as landscapes. In 2003, while still living in New York, she painted a single larger version of this theme. Since 2008 landscapes have largely replaced the meirenjiao as the focus of her attention. Varying greatly in scale and in palette, these paintings are not landscapes in the conventional sense. They have been described as “landscapes of the mind, the result of countless hours of wandering on the surface of the canvas wherever her intuitive grasp of the medium guides her. These journeys without destination are like long walks through imaginary landscapes, an activity that causes her a great deal of personal happiness. She loses herself in her painting in a totally agreeable way, the finished works reflecting a new level of psychic satisfaction that mirrors her new-found self-confidence and satisfaction with life as it is.”
Contrasting with the expansive landscapes is a suite of drawings of pears dating from 2012. Whereas the landscapes are expansive and festive in feeling, the drawings are tightly controlled, the forms of the fruit emerging from countless layers of small, circular strokes. Representing two aspects of her art, the oil paintings and works on paper are nonetheless united by the distinctive movement of her hand which can be utilized to create intense studies of the real world (the drawings of fruit) and evocative landscapes that incite an imaginative response on the part of the viewer.
北京前波画廊荣幸地宣布将于2013年5月25日起举办蔡锦的个展《溯源》。这是蔡锦在前波的首次个展，展出的是她的最新油画创作系列——风景。蔡锦被广泛认为是其同时代最具特色的艺术家之一。她的美人蕉油画系列早在90年代初便开始备受瞩目。1990年她在安徽老家看到一株凋零的植物，由此深受启发，从91年至今已经创作了将近400幅阐释这一主题的作品，在她居住于纽约的97至07年的十年间也没有中断过。
即使在茂盛的美人蕉几乎占满整个画布的时候，我们还是能够偶尔瞥见背景中微妙的图案和纹理。那些被艺术家本人称作“风景”的小幅油画作品便起源于这些纹理。2003年，蔡锦还居住在纽约的时候，她以这样的风景为题材创作了一幅大型油画。自2008年以后，蔡锦创作的重心便由美人蕉转为风景。这些风景画在尺寸和色调上各不相同，它们不是传统意义上的风景画，而被唐冠科博士形容为“心中的风景画，是她在画布上花了无数个小时、凭直觉任由画笔牵引的结果。这样毫无目的的创作过程就好似在幻想中的一片风景中散步一般，给了她本人极大的乐趣。她非常惬意地陶醉在自己的绘画过程中，创作完的作品展现了她在重新找回自信及生活的乐趣的同时，所进一步达到的愉悦的精神领域。”
与那些广阔无垠的风景形成鲜明对比的是一组从2012年开始创作的描绘梨子的素描作品。风景画散发出一种大气及喜庆之感，而素描作品的风格严谨细腻。水果的形态在无数细小的圆弧状笔触层叠之下显现。这次展出的油画和素描作品代表了蔡锦艺术创作的两个方面，却被蔡锦的丹青妙手天衣无缝地联系在了一起。在蔡锦的画笔下既有对现实事物细致入微的刻画（水果的素描），也有激发观者无穷想象的惊艳风景。