THE WAT E R BALLADS SHARON TANG 3 0 Au g u s t - 3 0 Sept ember 201 8
In this new body of paintings, Sharon Tang visualises flowing water through a resplendent palette of colours, imbuing lyrical abstraction with the tenets of eastern philosophy on water. Sharon’s paintings strive towards the creation of an ambient and dreamlike atmosphere in which foreground and background are entirely filled and blurred, ruminating on the character of water and its symbolic value and essence. The act of painting becomes a meditative practice, bringing the painter closer - one stroke at a time - towards a fuller understanding of an element central to life.
In this new body of paintings, Sharon Tang visualises flowing water through a resplendent palette of colours, imbuing lyrical abstraction with the tenets of eastern philosophy on water.
Born in Guangdong Province, China in 1971, Sharon Tang studied oil painting at the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts. She is based in Singapore and runs Five Degree East, her own painting conservation and restoration practice. Sharon has held previous solo exhibitions at iPreciation (2003), Y2 Arts (2010) and participated in group exhibitions at the Ngee Ann Cultural Centre and Merlin Gallery. Her paintings are in private collections in Singapore, Indonesia, Australia and Germany.
Go With The Flow: New Paintings By Sharon Tang Julian Davison
“The wise man knows that it is better to sit on the banks of a remote mountain stream than to be emperor of the whole world” — Chuang Tze (Chinese sage, 4th Century BCE) –
This new exhibition of paintings by Sharon Tang marks yet another new direction in the twenty-year career of this always-innovative artist from mainland China. The theme of her most recent work is the experience of water in nature. Plunging cascades, swirling torrents, reflective surfaces and mysterious depths: these are the subjects of Sharon’s new paintings, for which she has chosen to adopt a style that is at once expressionistic, but also bordering on the abstract. They are also themes that resonate with Sharon’s own background in China. A thousand years and more before their counterparts in the West, Chinese artists discovered the powerful emotional and intellectual responses that could be evoked through landscape painting. As early as the Tang Dynasty and more famously during the Song, which is generally regarded as the high-water mark of Chinese painting, the greatest artists of their day turned their gaze towards the natural world, both as an object of beauty in itself, but also as a metaphor for ideas about man and his place in the universe. Rivers and flowing water formed an important part of this naturalistic vocabulary.
For the Chinese sage, Lao Tzu, who lived in the sixth century BCE, all efforts to achieve, all striving for material gain, are not only vain pursuits but counterproductive. Instead of struggling to compete with the forces of Nature, we should instead endeavour to ‘do nothing’ (wu-wei). Of course by this Lao Tzu did not mean that we should literally do nothing. What he meant was that one should try to discern and follow the natural way of things — to recognise the inevitable unfolding of events as ordained by Nature and to ‘go with the flow’. These are contemplative paintings, as well as being joyful and exuberant celebrations of natural beauty; they nourish our soul, while pleasing our eye. This understanding is the key to appreciating Sharon’s latest work: an expression of universal themes through the agency of nature — the eternal flow of life, at one moment a raging flood, rushing through mountain gorges, at other times a lazy stream, idling in a bucolic backwater. These are contemplative paintings, as well as being joyful and exuberant celebrations of natural beauty; they nourish our soul, while pleasing our eye.
Water Ballad #1 oil on canvas 90.5 x 110 cm Painted in 2018
Water Ballad #2 oil on canvas 89.5 x 89.5 cm Painted in 2018
Water Ballad #3 oil on canvas 89.5 x 89.5 cm Painted in 2018
Water Ballad #4 oil on canvas 79.5 x 80.5 cm Painted in 2018
Water Ballad #5 oil on canvas 89.5 x 89.5 cm Painted in 2018
Water Ballad #6 oil on canvas 80 x 79 cm Painted in 2018
Painting Virtue Chua Chingyi
The painterly abstractions that mimic the ebbs and flows of the element of water reflects the artist’s personal search for higher states of virtue. A contemplative space is created through the combination of an intuitive colour palette and a naturalistic vocabulary in Sharon’s new paintings. As a devout Buddhist, her dreamscapes reveal her personal rootedness in spirituality. Being inspired by the teachings of Buddhism and virtues from Chinese classical texts, Sharon synthesises her influences with evocative features of the natural landscape, particularly the element of water. The painterly abstractions that mimic the ebbs and flows of the element of water - which Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu refers to when he describes water as fluid, soft and yielding - reflects the artist’s personal search for higher states of virtue. Likened to multicoloured strips of satin threading through one another, Sharon’s saturated brushstrokes create luminosity and dynamism that inspire the mind to wander beyond the painted surface. This new body of works can be described as redolent of varied waterbodies and landscapes which are tied seamlessly together by the spontaneity Sharon displays in abstract painting.
Water Ballad #7 oil on canvas 122 x 92 cm Painted in 2018
Water Ballad #8 oil on canvas 60 x 45.5 cm Painted in 2018
Water Ballad #9 oil on canvas 89.5 x 89.5 cm Painted in 2018
Water Ballad #10 oil on canvas 100 x 100 cm Painted in 2018
This publication accompanies the exhibition Sharon Tang: The Water Ballads at The Modern Space, on view from 30 August through 30 September 2018.
Artist: Sharon Tang Curator: Wang Zineng Contributors: Chua Chingyi and Julian Davison Exhibition and publication design: Jefferson Jong
Art Agenda, S.E.A. and Sharon Tang would like to thank everyone who has made the exhibition possible. Š 2018 by Art Agenda, S.E.A. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any manner without permission. All images are copyrights of Sharon Tang and Art Agenda, S.E.A.