PORTLAND,OREGON May 2013- The Portland-Suzhou Sister City Association (PSSCA) in cooperation with the Suzhou Academy of Traditional Chinese Painting, the Suzhou Foreign Affairs Office and the Portland Center for the Performing Arts provided for a wonderful exhibition of 58 ink-and-wash paintings by 17 renowned artists from Suzhou at the Portland Center for the Performing Arts June 4 through Saturday June 9, 2012. The exhibition was open to the public..
Mr. Jumin Zhou, President of Suzhou Academy of Traditional Chinese Painting shared with us the following thoughts on this exquisite exhibit. “Dating back to the age of 1460, four distinguished Suzhou artists named Shen Zhou, Weng Zhengming, Tang Yin and Qiu Ying enjoyed a reputation as the greatest masters of Chinese ink-and-wash painting. They portrayed landscape, animals, plants and people, expressing their grand ideology in a way of combining images with poetic literature. These masterpieces, the inspiration of city Suzhou, are valued as the highest level of wash painting in the Ming Dynasty as well as the immortal symbol overtime.
550 years later, their successors created a group of excellent programs and works in which discuss modern aesthetics at an extension of classic antiquity. These works are introduced as the fruits of new Suzhou style: inheriting from the Ming but in advance of traditional contents and old methods.
The seventeen artists on exhibition range from young artits of 30 to 85-year-old senior. Their ways of emphasizing emotion and philosophy give primacy to the individuality of different artists and their ideal states, which differs from the Western aesthetic value of depicting subjects with the act of seeing as its primary factor. As one of the best pathways to contact the world, painting is in every aspect to make the world of different cultures more communicative, more comprehensive, more respective and more intimate. This exhibition shared our appreciation of aesthetic value and being the connection between the east and west - this is the ultimate purpose why this exhibition came to Portland.
PSSCA wishes to express it appreciation to the Portland Center for the Performing Arts and the Mark Spencer Hotel for co-sponsoring this wonderful art exhibition from Suzhou China.