Shen Qing and Chen Qi are holding a joint exhibition. Look at how these two artists over the years have developed their artistic visions: Shen Qing’s narrative begins with the 1985 New Arts Movement, step by step evolving, while a weakly weightless expression began to witness strong supports recalling his mindful inwardness, as if he had escaped the confines of the world to a state of purity. His works are now calculated “subtractions”.

But Chen Qi is quite the opposite. In his early years he featured pure woodprint works, with elegant images of the zither and lotus blooms, until his work with all manner of flora and fauna. Recently his work involves an installation measuring 40m Notations of Time: Flying with the Wind, collating sculpture, architecture and lighting together, displaying an interdisciplinary ability and ambition, candidly revealing without a doubt. Chen is clearly engaged in “addition”.

This one addition and one subtraction, surely tell a narrative of the art history of our era. But as a close confidante, and fellow painter, I am even more willing to directly engage their works. The contents of their paintings, lead me to such a wealth of emotion, to gaze, or engage in wishful thinking, or wonder, and envy. This is precisely the significance that massive paintings should evoke. Facing these outstanding works, I should engage in a cold, considered analysis, explicating them rationally, or so it would seem, and yet how much passion would be lost in the process? Whether one likes their meal hot or cold, it all depends on one’s individual taste, and I am not sure which like I will have offended?

Qian Dajing “A thousand Shen Qin’s and a thousand Chen Qi’s”