Chinese artists will lead the way in new art style

ARTIST Liu Kuo-sung, whose exhibition sponsored by the Arts Centre opened at the Bank of America yesterday, is a deceptively quiet man. This is his first exhibition in Hong Kong, but ironically, perhaps, his is already a well-established name in artistic circles overseas – particularly in the United States.

 

Mr. Liu came to Hong Kong from Taipei less than two years ago. As Chairman of the Art Department of New Asia College he does not have as much time as he would like to devote to his own work. However, smiling gently he explained that there were compensations.

 

“I like to talk to young students – they keep me from getting too old. Before I came here I always refused to take up such a post because I wanted to spend time on my own painting. Eventually they persuaded me by saying I should think more about the students and not only my own painting. They said if I had good students I would be happy – and I think I am.”

 

Born in Shantung in 1932, Mr. Liu, like many Chinese of his generation, experienced poverty, political turmoil and the ravages of war at an early age. In 1949 he was taken to Taiwan as an orphan. There he began his formal training in art.

 

“In China, in my teens, I had started Chinese traditional painting, but at university in Taiwan I decided I was more interested in becoming an oil painter. Then, in 1960, when the Palace Museum in Taipei first exhibited paintings by the great masters, I realized that I must change again.

 

“I wanted to combine the two traditions of West and East and create a new style – still today I am trying and I think, to some extent, I have succeeded.”

 

To prove his point, Mr. Liu showed me one of his paintings done with a mixture of acrylic and watercolour. For three years Mr. Liu was fascinated by the moon and he produced a long series of paintings on this theme. Now, however, he says he has come back to earth again and all the paintings in his current exhibition are abstract landscapes, but still with a distinct Chinese quality.

 

“I am fascinated by the earth as it is in mist, in sunshine or in moonlight. Even when I was painting the moon, there was always some landscape of the world below it.”

 

As well as experimenting with new themes, Mr. Liu experiments in other ways. Since 1966 all of his paintings have been on “cotton paper” which he has specially made for him.

 

“They tried four times before they succeeded. Then they found they had no name, so they called it after me.

 

“With this Liu Kuo-sung paper I can pull the fibres off after I have finished painting. This makes fine white lines and somehow brings my paintings to life.”

 

“The traditions of Western and Chinese art will come closer until they make one new great tradition. This will be a mixture of the best of everything. Chinese started to learn Western oil painting more than 70 years ago and they learned to understand Western art. Westerners on the other hand are just starting to learn to appreciate Chinese art. The Chinese have the advantage in this and I think they will do better in the new style that eventually emerges.”