Ying Ming: Painting's language

This series of works is about the exploration  painting language, through which I hope that people will be given a new type of visual experience, that is, dynamic feelings out of the flowing in my painting works. I expect people will be more easily aroused to think. Such a flowing expression through painting brushes comes from an idea that I am cherishing and is to be elaborated in the followings.

Everything is in absolute motion and stillness is relative. Eastern Buddhism believes that all things in the world have a constant state of change and are interdependent, for this western philosophers have the same ideas. To express this phenomenon, painting is one of the ways that is able to do the job.

However, many of the present paintings have been drawn to express their ideas through static means. This, I am afraid, could not fully reflect the ever-changing and dynamic nature of this world. Therefore I intend to adopt more visually flowing lines and striking colours which can better tell motions and changes of the world, so that viewers are easily touched by and connected with this changing world. In my painting projects, there are, as a viewer can clearly see, no any straight lines, because my idea is that the movement is tortuous, everything is ever-changing and interdependent, and so is our inner thought. To better express the tortuous nature of the world, I have tried to use flowing brushes and striking colours in my paintings which have a stronger impact on viewers since they were exhibited. I expect that the use of such flowing brushes and strong colours can be developed into a new painting language which will teach people to face this dynamic changing world, stimulate their imaginations and enrich their sense of the objective world.

A society, especially today's, is undergoing more acute and diverse changes.  Traditional techniques applied in painting, I think, are hard to keep up with the pulse of the era and thus difficult to show the changes of the society. I, for this reason, have made a try in choosing such a flowing, visual but implicit approach to match the changing of the world so that people can feel the changing and search for what behind the flowing motion, which is something each person will try to understand based on his own life experiences and his emotions.

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About the Artist

I am a painter in both China and UK. My BA course is fine art painting in Wimbledon College of Art and I will continue my fine art study in Royal College of Art. In recent years, I focus on creating oil painting on linen. I have tried many different painting styles and intend to combine the eastern philosophical theories and western way of representation. In my practice, I am exploring a kind of personal painting language and devote myself to bringing a new visual experience of painting to viewers. Striking colors and exquisite composition, delicate sense of rhythm become the characteristics of my works. I am eager to express my thoughts and thinking of society, life and culture through my painting works. I hope that viewers can find resonation in strong emotions, rich imagination, philosophical thoughts and personal experience presented in the works.

(NH 2018 submission)