When ink landscapes come alive: Zeng Jianyong’s world beyond the canvas

(Edited and refined by Candice Chan, with the assistance of AI translation. All photos courtesy of Prestige Gallery.)

Chinese contemporary ink artist Zeng Jianyong is staging his first solo exhibition in Southeast Asia, Into the Life of Things (物有灵), in Singapore. Bringing together major works created over nearly a decade, from 2017 to 2026, the exhibition features six series — Tangram; Folk Landscape; Animals; Mountains, Seas and Flora; Mustard Seed Garden and Wuyou Garden — alongside 17 new works making their debut.

Zeng, 55, who previously lived in London and now divides his time between Beijing and Shenzhen, told Lianhe Zaobao (LHZB), “Traditional Chinese ink landscape painting is governed by the theory of the ‘three distances’ — high distance, deep distance and level distance. Yet there is another sense of space that frequently appears in these paintings but has never been fully explored.”

A decade ago, Zeng shifted his focus from figure painting and explorations of the human condition to landscapes, seeking to expand the spatial possibilities of traditional Chinese ink painting and place it within a contemporary artistic context.

He believes that the beauty of brushwork and ink alone is not enough to sustain contemporary art. Drawing on the aesthetics of Chinese calligraphy, he uses overlapping and intersecting lines and shapes to create a continuous, interconnected space, evoking a world in which all things possess a spirit of their own.

Creating an ethereal effect

Zeng’s landscapes are not painted directly from nature. Instead, they are imagined worlds shaped by his encounters with the natural environment. Rendered in delicate shades of pale blue, pink, yellow and purple, his paintings have a soft, understated quality.

In his Folk Landscape series, pine trees are the only readily identifiable species. The other trees and flowers defy easy classification, having emerged largely from the artist’s memories, imagination and dreams.

Zeng creates these paintings on dampened paper. He discovered that repeatedly applying brushstrokes to wet paper caused its fibres to fray, so he began painting predominantly on the reverse side, allowing the colours to seep through and produce a soft, misty effect on the front.

Born in Chenghai, Guangdong province, Zeng first became fascinated by the appearance of wet ink while studying Chinese painting at Huaqiao University. Watching his teachers demonstrate ink painting, he was struck by the beauty of ink before it dried and began searching for ways to preserve that fleeting quality.

He has since spent years experimenting with brushwork and colour on Yunlong bark paper from Anhui province. Applying a scientific approach, he investigated how ink and pigments spread across paper, discovering that it is not water alone but the binding agents in pigments that cause them to disperse. By using pigments without these binders, he can better control how far the colours bleed.

Zeng employs calligraphic brushstrokes to depict pine trees and rocks. Some of the rocks are rendered in exceptionally deep blacks, achieved through several layers of aged ink.

He laughed and said, “Painting is like scientific research; searching for certainty amid the unknown and unpredictable.”

Bringing ink landscapes into three dimensions

Zeng has taken traditional ink landscapes beyond the confines of the flat picture plane, transforming them into three-dimensional reliefs. Mountains, figures and miniature plants have also emerged from his paintings as papier-mâché sculptures.

Unlike artists formally trained in sculpture, Zeng approaches these works from a painter’s perspective, using brushwork to define their forms and surfaces.

His painted lightweight landscape rock work Mountain Stream is mobile, and easily fits in among the decor at home.

Having also trained in printmaking at China’s Central Academy of Fine Arts, Zeng became interested in the contrast between traditional Chinese landscape painting and the geometry of modern life.

“Traditional landscapes are shaped by imagined forms, but the environments we inhabit are overwhelmingly geometric. Our buildings and furniture are all made up of geometric shapes,” he observed.

This led him to combine traditional landscape imagery with geometric forms, allowing architectural elements to become an integral part of his installations.

Grounded in reality

While exercising by a river during the Covid-19 pandemic, Zeng became acutely aware of the contrast between natural scenery and man-made landscapes. The experience inspired his Tangram series, in which he dismantles and reassembles landscape spaces, compressing three-dimensional forms back into two-dimensional compositions.

“I began by turning ink painting into three-dimensional works. Then I combined two-dimensional and three-dimensional elements to create spatial installations. Later, I brought these frameless compositions together within structures resembling tangram puzzles,” he explained.

“These spaces are also grounded in reality, resting on the horizon rather than existing in some imaginary realm. Together, the various elements seem to form a theatre. The figures and landscapes appear to emerge from the mists of history and come before us, acting out scene after scene of the drama of human life.”

Zeng’s monumental ink installations can stand as tall as 3.4 metres and stretch up to 20 metres in length. With landscapes on such an expansive scale and pine trees almost life-sized, viewers can feel as though they have stepped into the scenery itself.

For his Singapore exhibition, Zeng has cut his painted paper into sections and mounted them directly onto the gallery walls, inviting visitors to move through and around the works.

In recent years, Zeng has held solo exhibitions at the Powerlong Museum in Shanghai, the One Art Museum in Beijing and the Maison Hermès in Shanghai, among other venues.

Into the Life of Things runs until 29 November at Prestige Gallery, Tanjong Pagar Distripark, 39 Keppel Road, #03-01, Singapore 089065. The exhibition is open from 11 am to 7 pm daily, except Mondays.

This article was first published in Lianhe Zaobao as “出画又入画 艺术家曾健勇造水墨空间 游走立体与平面”.

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