CURATOR’S STATEMENT

Transforming Mountains and Rivers

山水情策展人: 关伟

在澳大利亚风景画有着较长的历史，而且一直是绘画中的一个主要画种。直到今天，风景画依然有着巨大的生命力。在澳洲华人社区中有一大批喜爱画风景写生的画家，而Sam和Peter则是其中的佼佼者。

这次他们能在澳大利亚首都堪培拉Nancy Sever Gallery 举办双人展，也充分证明了他们的作品已逐渐的被主流社会认可与接纳。

他们俩位的风景画，共同的特点是色彩明快，笔触刀法娴熟有力，形态舒展自由，并具有很强的中国山水画写意的风格，看后不禁令人一喜。相较于刚过去的疫情，沉闷压抑的2020年，我们在2021年太需要一种久违了的欣喜，通透酣畅的感觉。从他们两人作品中扑面而来的，就是这种喜悦和欢快的感觉。

Peter Yu（余向荣）自幼喜欢画画，自学成材。他做过美术编辑，从事过广告设计装潢工作等等。来澳30多年，从未间断过在绘画上的追求。他多次入选澳洲主流社會舉辦的《悉尼联合艺朮协会联展》、《第48屆猎人谷联展》等重要画展，并担任在新南威尓斯省议会大廈举办的《回顾和展望》策展人之一。

Peter善于使用刮刀，用油彩厚涂画面。画面常会留有一些空白，这是借用了中国山水画中的留白“实有”与“空无”的对比。空白不止有形状，还有光和空间的深度，特别适合表现澳大利亚的自然景观，有一种无穷的时空之感。Peter偏重于理性，尽管作品看似未完成，实际上都是经过精心的艺术处理，从而使作品有一种自然的、可呼吸的灵性。

Sam Lai(赖增平)自幼习画，毕业于青岛科技大学文学艺术学院。近些年，他的作品多次入围澳大利亚重要的绘画比赛大奖之中。2019年入围了Mosman Art Prize，并获得了该年的Allan Gamble 大奖。

Sam是新俱象绘画的实践者，他从客观现象中提练出一定结构的、色彩的关系，然后在画面上呈现较主观的审美情趣和个性化的绘画语言。他的写生画作不受客观的缠绕，鲜明并果断的营造自己的塑造愿望，笔法泼辣而又富有变化。他通常会在画的表面形成浓厚的色块，尽管如此，他仍然能够捕捉到光影，线条和色彩之间细腻又粗旷的变化，很有中国大写意的风采。画面的张力十足，充满了活力。

澳大利亚地大物博，为画家提供了丰富的创作灵感。漫长的海岸线，复杂的地形地貌，奇特的动植物，这些都成为了画家们抒情和言志的最佳寄托对象。同时他们把东方的道家思想“天人合一”的观点，也移植到了他们在澳大利亚的艺术创作中。他们将天、水、地、人等自然万物和谐地融为一体，他们的作品将给澳大利亚的风景画，带来一股新的气象！

Guan Wei

Curator

April 2021

Transforming Mountains and Rivers.

Landscape painting in Australia has a long history and has always been one of the main genres of painting. To this day, landscape painting has great vitality. In the Australian Chinese community there are many artists who love to paint landscapes.  Peter and Sam are among the best.

 On this occasion they are holding an exhibition at the Nancy Sever Gallery in Canberra, the Australian capital, thus reaffirming that their work has been recognised and accepted by the mainstream art world.

Peter and Sam have artistic characteristics in common. They both paint landscapes in oils using bright colours with skillful and powerful brushstrokes and they have adopted a sort of free form, calligraphic Chinese painting style. In 2020 we all suffered the dull and depressing restrictions of a pandemic. Now in 2021 we need joy and cheerfulness. These two artists bring this to us with their work in this show.

Peter Yu (Yu Xiangrong) is a self-taught artist who has loved to paint since he was a child.  He has worked as an art publisher-editor and has been engaged in advertising design and decoration. He has lived in Australia for more than thirty years and has never stopped painting the Australian bush, land and sea. He has been selected many times to participate in major art exhibitions such as the Sydney Combined Art Society’s 29th Exhibition at Darling Harbour and the 48th Hunter Valley Exhibition. He was also one of the curators of the First Chinese Artist Achievements-Review and Prospect Exhibition at Parliament House (NSW).

Peter excels in the use of a pallet-knife and the application of thick oil paints. There is often blank space in his paintings, which draws on the contrast between the ‘real existence’ and the ‘empty space’ of Chinese landscape painting. Blank or empty space not only has shape but also gives depth to light. It is especially suitable for expressing the natural landscape of Australia as it adds a sense of the infinite to time and space. Peter emphasises rationality. Although the works may seem unfinished they have actually been treated with a meticulousness that gives them a natural and breathable spirituality.

Sam Lai (Lai Zengping) first studied painting during his childhood. He graduated from the School of Literature and Art at Qingdao University of Technology, China. In recent years his works have been shortlisted in major Australian painting competitions. In 2019 he was shortlisted for the Mosman Art Prize and he won the Allan Gamble Award.

Sam is a practitioner of new realism painting. He extracts certain structural and colour relationships from objective phenomena and then uses a personalised artistic language to create a subjective aesthetic appeal in his work. 

His sketches are not affected by objective entanglement, leaving him free to satisfy his own wish to  shape vividly and decisively. The brushwork is vigorous and varied. He usually forms thick blocks of colour on the surface of a painting but despite this he can still capture the delicate and subtle changes between light and shadow, lines and colours, which are similar to a Chinese style of painting. His work is full of both tension and vitality.

Australia's vast land and natural resources have provided both painters with rich, creative inspiration. The long coastline, complex topography and unique flora and fauna have all become the best sources for them to express their emotions and aspirations. At the same time, they have transplanted the Daoist idea of “harmony between man and nature" into their artistic creations in Australia. They have integrated sky, water, earth, people and other natural elements into a oneness. Peter’s and Sam’s work bring a new way of looking at the Australian landscape.

Guan Wei

Curator

April 2021

XIANGRONG YU (PETER YU)

Artworks included in the exhibition. 

(for details of the works, please hold cursor over the image)

ZENGPING LAI (SAM LAI)

Artworks included in the exhibition. 

(for details of the works, please hold cursor over the image)

Xiangrong Yu (Peter Yu) Biographical details

Peter Yu (Yu Xiangrong) was born in Guangzhou, China in 1959. He was self-taught in art and painting. In his early years he was hired by Guang Zhou Yang Cheng Art Publisher to engage in advertising drawing, painting, design and art decoration. He has pursued art since childhood, and specialised in oil painting. He is fascinated by fine arts, using brushes to express the dreams in his heart, searching for the love and beauty of life. He uses colour to capture the forest and the sea, through light and lines, telling the story of nature in a simple and free manner.

In 1989, he moved to Sydney and founded his art decoration, advertising and design company. In his spare time he devotes himself to painting and participated in the formation of the “Sydney Sketch Group” and the “Mobile Colour Plate” artist team. He has a wide following and his new works are often collected by individuals as soon as they are completed.

There are nearly one hundred of his oil paintings in private collections, including those of the well-known Sydney writer Ms. Jiang Jingzhi, the poet Ms. Yingxia and the violinist Ms. Xia Bing. His paintings are also to be found in private collections in New Zealand, the United States and the United Kingdom.

Exhibitions:

2015    Australian Chinese Artists Exhibition, Bond Art Gallery, Dawes Point, NSW

2016    Harvest, Willoughby Arts Centre, Sydney, NSW

            First Chinese Artist Achievements Exhibition- Review & Prospect,  Parliament House, Sydney (Curator)

2017    Art & Emotions, Australian Chinese Artists Joint Exhibitions, Cherrybrook, NSW

2018    Chinese Collective Exhibition, Sydney Red Gate Gallery, Gladesville, NSW

  Between Art, 541 Art Space, Sydney NSW

           64th Hunters Hill Art Exhibition, Hunters Hill Town Hall, Hunters Hill, NSW

            Nature & Life Images From Our Souls, St Magdalen’s Chapel, Wolli Creek. NSW

2019    The Love for the World. Are You a Dog Person or Cat Person?, Chinese Culture Centre, Chatswood

            3 Plus 3 Art Exhibition, Bankstown Art Centre, Bankstown NSW

            29th ‘Art of Sydney’ Awards Exhibition, Combined Art Societies of Sydney, Darling Harbour Maritime Museum

            101 Society Art Exhibition, 101 Society Art, Oatley, NSW

2020    Apart in Space, Together in Art, Kogarah Library, Kogarah, NSW         

Blooming Blue Jacaranda Art Exhibition, Ultimo Studio, Ultimo, NSW

2021    Deer River Group 12th Art Exhibition, Guangzhou Cultural Centre, Guangzhou, China

Zenping Lai (Sam Lai) Biographical details

Zengping Lai (Sam) was born in 1964 and began studying art learning at an early age. He studied art at the Qingdao Science And Technology University from 1982 to 1986. He also learnt painting from the famous artist Hui Wang. He is the Director of the Art Society of Qingdao University of Science and Technology. He currently lives in Sydney. His artworks can be found in private collections in Australia, USA, Japan, Korea, Hong Kong and China.

Exhibitions

2020.   Gosford Art Prize finalist.

2020.   Art Exhibition at Qingdao Science & Technology University 

2020.   Apart in Space. Together by Art, Sydney

2020.   Big Love without Boundaries  

2020.   Invitational Exhibition of Australian Chinese Artists, Sydney

2020.   Invitational Exhibition online of Australian Painting Academy Artists

 2019.   Winner of the Allan Gamble Prize, Mosman Art Prize

2019.   Gosford Art Prize finalist

2019.   Hunters Hill Art Prize finalist

2019.   Invitational Exhibition of Australian Artists

2019.   Inclinations. Four artists group exhibition, 541 Art Space Sydney

2018.   Emerge. Live in ART Sydney

2018.   Between Arts. 541 Art Space Sydney

2017   Pursuit of Light. Four artists group painting exhibition, Sydney

2016.   Review and Prospect, NSW Parliament House

2016.   Harvest 2016. Ewart Gallery Willoughby