For this issue’s artist, I chose Huang Yongyu, a Chinese contemporary and expressionist artist who is best known for his ink paintings, caricatures, and sculptures. Yongyu is a celebrated artist who has held multiple solo exhibitions and has been featured in countless collections, including one that was held in New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. Yongyu was born in China’s Hunan Province in 1924 and gained inspiration for many of his artworks from his home county, Fenhuang. Although Yongyu never acquired a traditional artistic education, he became the youngest teacher at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in 1950. By this time, he had already shifted away from the traditional style of woodblock printing and converted to freehand ink paintings which generally depicted different animals, landscapes, and human figures. Even at age 98, Yongyu has continued to create prints to this day and even recently designed the China Post’s 2023 Lunar New Year Rabbit stamp.
One of my favorite works by Yongyu is Lotus and Bird, an expressionist freehand ink painting that depicts an egret flying through what appears to be a marsh. The most distinctive elements of the piece are the egret and the lotus flowers in the foreground. These are excellently defined, as the warm scarlet of the lotus and the bright white of the egret contrast well with the darkness of the background. I also enjoy how expressive the background is. Rather than clearly defining the shapes in the background, Yongyu uses wet black ink to create a negative space to represent other objects, allowing the foreground elements to shine through. He also used an ink wash for the marsh instead of creating a solid body of water. These aspects make the piece seem more three-dimensional, and help better define other foreground elements, such as the tall grass.
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