Neither Mountain nor Water 3

Series Title: 非山非水系

非山非水之三

2016

He Sanqing 何三青

(Chinese, b. 1988)

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Culture

China

Medium

Woodblock print, printed on xuan paper with water-soluble ink

Measurements

61 x 97 cm (24 x 38 3/16 in.)

Credit Line

The Sarah Stern Michael Fund 2020.278.3

This artwork is known to be under copyright.

Location

Not on view

Did You Know?

The Chinese word for landscape, 山水, is made of the characters for mountain 山 and water 水. The title of this work suggests that the artist is moving beyond tradition.

Description

This series of five prints transforms landscape elements into abstract patterns while referencing the monochrome tradition of classical ink landscape painting. He Shanqing presses differently shaped and textured, black inked blocks of wood over a grid of preconfigured lines on a sheet of xuan paper. The results are impressions of remarkable variety in texture, monochrome ink shades, and shapes. The title, Neither Mountain nor Water, negates the subject of mountains and water (shan shui) in favor of, and with an emphasis on, graphic abstraction.

He Shanqing was born in Hunan Province. The first prize winner of the Third Muban Printmaking Award in 2017, he graduated from the China Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing with an MA degree one year later.