Since the late 1980s, Contemporary Chinese art has become increasingly more lucrative in the international art market. Up until 1985, it was illegal to sell art in China. Today, major European auction houses like Christie’s and Sotheby’s hold offices in Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Beijing — with net sales that topple over into the hundreds of millions. Chinese painter Zhang Daqian (1899-1983) garnered $354.8 million in sales at auction in 2016, beating international sales of Picasso by $31 million. These numbers represent not only the buying power of the Chinese population, but also the immense popularity of China’s own artists. Contemporary Chinese art often features a mix of both traditional Chinese techniques with Western art movements such as pop art, cementing its popularity among western buyers. Studio Gallery artist Freda Lee-McCann speaks on the emerging popularity of her genre of artwork within the art market, while explaining the inspiration behind her upcoming exhibition.
Freda Lee-McCann, “Summer Time”, Mixed Media
After studying Mathematics and Art during her undergraduate years at the University of Maryland, Freda Lee-McCann did not start studying Chinese art seriously until her early 30s. Freda studied traditional Chinese painting techniques with master C.C. Wang in New York City for over 20 years, until his death in 2003. She mentions how much Wang “really enjoyed passing his knowledge down to his students.” Wang was internationally recognized for his extensive collection of ancient Chinese master paintings, as well as being one of the last true scholar-artists in a century-old lineage. A principal part of Chinese painting tradition is studying under the scholar-artist masters who have come before you while paying respect to the skillful techniques and compositions used. Due to this, Freda says she initially was afraid to break with tradition: “I always had thoughts that I wanted to incorporate Western art into my Chinese art, but I felt like I had two different personalities. I knew how to do watercolor and still life, but I didn’t yet know how to incorporate it into my Chinese art.”
Freda Lee-McCann, It Looks Like Rain
Freda Lee-McCann, Whispers from the Past
A breakthrough moment came for Freda when a friend looking through her studio remarked on how beautiful her calligraphy work was. Freda explains that doing calligraphy is a ritual warm-up for her before painting, and she often practices on the pages of old phone books. Ink calligraphy and handwriting is another important practice in Chinese culture, and to Freda, she says she looked upon the books as “trash, something I would never think to incorporate into my artwork.” One day while working on a landscape painting, Freda made a mistake, which in tradition usually means starting over on the entire piece. Instead, she began tearing up the discarded pages of calligraphy to collage over the paint. Layering is not allowed in Chinese painting, so Freda felt she was making a significantly bold move: “I realized that creating collages was actually a lot of fun, and allowed me to relax while creating my art. I no longer had to worry about everything being perfect. It also allowed me to use materials in my studio that would have otherwise been discarded.” This realization would inspire her to continue layering and collaging her works together, creating a coalescence between the ancient Chinese techniques with the Western styles of collage and watercolor.
Today, artists like Freda are bringing their tradition to a new contemporary audience. Freda cites an additional Chinese collage artist, Yang Yongliang, as another inspiring example. At first glance, the work appears as a typical mountain landscape, until you look closely at the details. Yongliang creates his collages through photography, and similarly to Freda’s work, he takes the traditional composition of a Chinese landscape painting while infusing it with a modern spin. Yongliang makes his landscapes entirely from images of modern-day urban China, expanded by the effects of industrialization and overpopulation. His works offer a moving commentary on China’s emerging role as an economic and industrial superpower, as well as the effects of climate change.
Yang Yongliang, Endless Streams, 2017. © Yang Yongliang / Courtesy Galerie Paris-Beijing
Freda’s upcoming exhibition at Studio Gallery, entitled “Window Into the Past” focuses on other aspects of Chinese tradition in painting. Chinese landscapes are meant to be read and experienced differently than European or American landscape paintings. The viewer instead takes a journey through the painting, traveling through the scene the artist has created. All landscapes are traditionally done in black and white using ink on rice paper, with great emphasis on mastery of brush strokes. If in vertical format the painting is “read” from bottom to top. If horizontal, the painting is read from right to left, like the ancient Chinese language.
Freda says she wants to introduce a different way to view a traditional Chinese landscape by inserting a “window.” In works like “Spring” and “Winter,” an all monochromatic landscape is interrupted by a window of color that invites the viewer to begin their journey through the painting. These bursts of color are often added with mixed media materials, furthering Freda’s contemporary essence. Freda says her intention always “is to keep the spirit of the Chinese landscape tradition while experimenting with some non-traditional ways of making art.”
Freda Lee-McCann, Winter
Freda Lee-McCann, Spring
How are these new moves being received by buyers? Freda says last year at a show she met a Chinese man who was interested in her work, explaining that his parents collected traditional Chinese art. He wanted to stretch their collection a bit, and bought a Lichtenstein-inspired landscape piece of hers for his parents.
Sometimes Freda’s friends ask her what she thinks C.C. Wang would have said if he saw her collage work today: “C.C. broke a lot of traditions. I think he would’ve liked it because I'm taking a big step to do something that hasn’t been done before, but while still keeping within the tradition.”
From staff contributor Ginnie Murphy