Qiu Deshu Art Exhibition

25 paintings by Qiu Deshu, one of few Chinese artists who have inspired international recognition since the 1980’s is going on display at 16 Bloomfield Terrace, London, SW1W 8PG from 1st to 10th November 2012. The exhibition which is open to members of the public and is free to attend has been curated by known art collector and dealer Michael Goedhuis, in association with Coutts.

The exhibition is part of the 15th Asia Arts Festival which comprises over 70 events and selling exhibitions across London from 1st to 10th November, attracting collectors from all over the UK and some few thousand buyers from overseas.

Born in Shanghai in 1948, Qiu Deshu, one of the few artists to have inspired international recognition since the 1980s, studied traditional ink painting and seal carving when he was a child. But his career in art was interrupted by the Cultural Revolution when he was sent to work at a plastics factory. When the turmoil ended, he picked up ink painting again and co-founded the Grass Painting Society (cao cao hua she), one of China’s first experimental art societies in the post-Mao period. In the early 1980s, he developed his signature style of works called “fissuring” (liebian). The concept of “fissuring”, which literally means tearing and change in Chinese, is a pictorial metaphor for the artist’s life and as his artistic career, both of which have experienced dramatic disruptions and setbacks. In these works, he applies vivid colours to xuan paper, which he tears up and mounts the fragments to a base layer, often leaving space between to create a pictorial field with the “cracks” that he feels are symbolic of life’s journey.