Qin Feng (1961)

Unleashed Force

Qin Feng’s paintings erupt with a kind of volcanic, primordial force. As one of the pioneers of the China’s Avant-Garde movement in the 1980s, Qin was among the first contemporary Chinese artists to radically expand the role of calligraphy, transforming it from a formal, disciplined tradition into a vehicle for raw, gestural abstraction.

In Qin Feng’s practice the ancient bones of calligraphic structure collide with the liberated movements of Western Abstract Expressionism. The black ink strokes are sometimes explosive, sometimes meditative. They carry the spiritual weight of script, yet they behave like living matter, swelling and recoiling across paper and canvas. The looping lines of red pigment introduce a restless current, like veins of energy running across the surface, while recalling the ancient belief in red threads that connect human destinies from birth.

Charged with the experiences of his youth as a shepherd riding through the deserts and prairies of Xinjiang, Qin Feng’s brushstrokes release a primordial energy that opens onto a cosmic vastness. That expansive and untamed landscape seems to reverberate throughout his practice — in the sweep of wind, the surge of weather, and the rhythm of open space — shaping a visual language that channels this primal sensibility through marks that feel at once ancient and urgently contemporary.

Across these works, Qin’s gestures do not merely reference calligraphy; they reinvent its purpose, asserting it as a universal language of movement, energy, and becoming.

November 2025