Artist's work lets 'imagination wander'

Ding Bin enjoys painting geographic images from an overlooking perspective but using ink brushes.

He has created a novel art vocabulary and appreciation of ink painting by destroying the aesthetic conventions of traditional shanshui (mountain and water) art. His current solo exhibition at the Today Art Museum displays his new work.

His art has been categorized as the "post-shanshui iconography" by Yin Jinan, a professor of art history and head of Department of the Humanities at the Central Academy of Fine Art.

Ink and brushes are central to traditional landscape painting imagery, executed through the artist's spirit.

"Ding extracts all the possible decipherable meanings that the artwork is capable of representing … . Our imagination may also wander freely through vertical and horizontal expansion of space and the varying textures of his images," Yin said.

A graduate of Chinese ink painting, Ding, 53, carved out a career producing infomercials for television stations, before returning to his artistic roots three years ago.

The exhibition runs through May 7.

Painting by Ding Bing. Photo Provided to China Daily

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