2005.11.23 – 2006. 01.22

Ikon Gallery, Birmingham

This is the first exhibition in the UK of work by Shanghai-based Chinese artist Ding Yi.Consisting of seventeen works,dated from 1989,it follows the development of hiscareer since he became expressly preoccupied with the simple cross motifs, ‘x’ and ‘+’.

Early attempts at more expressionistic figurative painting were superseded by aconstant use of grid structures,articulated by the intersection of lines at 90 and 45degrees,painted in various colours. The technique was hard-edged and the overalleffect,pictorially democratic,absolutely compelling at once in its breadth and detail.Acrylic on canvas,this kind of work in turn gave way to a practice that involved a rangeof non-art materials and a more informal style. Instead of using masking tape,whichgave the work a seamless quality, Ding Yi now paints by hand every mark that’s made,slowly criss-crossing the surfaces of his paintings without taking any short cuts.

By the late 1990s Ding Yi’s preferred medium support,instead of plain canvas,wascheck and tartan cloth. His mark-making thus resonates with the patterns,his appliedcolours playing off those in the cloth left exposed,the repetition of a craft-like activitysuperimposed on that of an industrial weaving process. The result is as aestheticallyrich as it is conceptually satisfying,the crosses articulating basic truths in shimmeringpictorial fields.

Crosses, as the intersections of two lines, such as longitude and latitude, are often the means by which a precise location is indicated. In Ding Yi’s work they take on anexistentialist significance,as mantra-like gestures they reiterate the fact that the artistphysically “was there”. Without being particularly religious,the artist acknowledges theinfluence of Taoism,especially in his aspiration to simplicity and the blurring of boundaries-signified,for example,by a transparency of process and confusion of motif and ground.

Yet, at the same time, Ding Yi asserts the metropolitan nature of his work, its increasingly bright colours being inspired by the neon quality of Shanghai at night. His new work isat once a kind of a meditation and a contemporary Chinese rejoinder to Mondrian’sBroadway Boogie Woogie,beautiful and thoughtful,quite unlike any other painting beingmade today. Seen here,in the context of earlier series, it makes an interesting case forthe continuing relevance of abstraction in contemporary art.

Jonathan Watkins

Director, Ikon

Ding Yi , Appearance of Crosses

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