Chen Mo: Gongbi and Heavy Color Between East and West

Chen Mo: Gongbi and Heavy Color Between East and West

Chen Mo, whose real name is Chen Qiufang, is a thinking painter in permanent search of the “new” in Chinese art. For more than twenty years she has moved between Chinese and Western painting: accomplished in xieyi (freehand) brushwork, precise in gongbi (meticulous) detail, and at home in ink, color ink, and Western media alike. She calls herself “an art student who will never graduate,” and she is never satisfied with her own work.

The result is a body of painting that folds the rhythmic vitality of Chinese art into imagery, abstraction, and expressionist color. Her pictures hold poetry, dream, and wonder, with a strong modern accent — and behind them sit decades of searching, disciplined technique, and hard-won feeling for light, life, time, and nature.

*The essay below is adapted from a text by Qi Lu, president of the Huaihua Artists Association and vice dean of the Zhongguancun Painting Academy.*

*A Flute in the Autumn Wind — self-portrait*

Every work, Qi Lu writes, is an act of attention — a meditation passed on to the viewer. And there is a distinctly feminine poise in the painting: elegant without affectation, luminous without glare, warm without scalding. “Her paintings are like this, and so is she.”

*Past Events in the Red Dust*

A true artwork, Qi Lu adds, must unite creativity, beauty, and uniqueness behind a clear personal symbol and an unconventional hand. Chen Mo has done exactly that, walking step by step toward the depths of the heart — and, in the process, toward you and me.

*Flowers of Happiness: Cornflowers — 180 × 97 cm, ink and color on paper, 2022*

*Moonlight Serenade*

Zhu Qingsheng, a classical oil painter in the Italian tradition, credits her with progress on a two-thousand-year problem: the limits of traditional materials long kept Chinese painting from the full science of color. “Chen Mo has fused Chinese and Western art, pouring color science into Chinese painting,” he writes. “She has turned a fresh page for Chinese painting and written her own chapter in contemporary art.” For him, only first-rate work deserves collecting — and hers belongs in that company.

*Blossom Blessings*

*Celestial Music Drifting*

Shi Qi, deputy director of the art committee of the Beijing Fine Art Academy and president of the Beijing Shi Qi Painting Academy, calls her “a pure artist” whose paintings read like narrative poetry. He praises her command of light and shadow, her bright color, her bold and singular line, and the romance that runs through work both vivid and graceful — for him, she stands among the most distinctive voices in new Chinese painting.

*A Seat in the Garden*

*Flowers Bloom Quietly*

Flowers, gardens, and moonlight recur across these works — subjects small enough to hold and large enough to wander in. Watch for the shift between fine gongbi line and loose washes of mineral color: that dialogue is where her two traditions meet.

If Chen Mo’s luminous world suits your space or your collection, Badou Art can advise on viewing, acquiring, and commissioning works in this spirit.

Source: https://www.badouart.com/25370.html