Wang Tiande: Further Along

Qualia Contemporary Art is pleased to present Further Along (越走越遠), an exhibition of works on paper by Chinese artist WANG Tiande. The artist’s first solo exhibition at the gallery will feature a new body of work that engages with Chinese poetry, history, and the tradition of brush and ink painting. Framing the collection, dualities between and within the selected works echo the visual interplay between positive and negative space for which WANG is known. The artist’s unique style of landscape “painting” is characterized by his unconventional use of incense, burning away parts of the paper to create outlines of trees, mountains, and rivers that reveal an ink-washed underlayer beneath. The charred landscapes are coupled with pieces of calligraphy, each pairing opening a new channel of discourse around the corresponding textual or mechanical elements of the sources. Further Along invites the public to reflect upon WANG’s contemporary interpretation of traditional Chinese painting and Qing Dynasty-era poetry, while engaging with the culture of innovation in Silicon Valley. The exhibition advocates for a humanistic approach to technology that prioritizes the process over the end result, celebrating the symbiotic relationship between the artist’s hand and 21st-century tools and ideologies exemplified by WANG’s practice.