Beschreibung:

Hsiao Chin Nel profondo delle Tenebre 《在黑暗的深處》 1965 signed and dated 'Hsiao Chin 1965. [in English and Chinese]' lower centre acrylic on canvas 135 x 165 cm (53 1/8 x 64 7/8 in.) Painted in 1965.
Provenance Studio Marconi, Milan Acquired from the above by the present owner Catalogue Essay Born in Shanghai in 1935, Hsiao Chin and his family moved to Taiwan in 1949, the year of the Chinese revolution. He grew up in an artistic environment as his father, Hsiao Yo-Mei, was an accomplished Chinese conductor and composer who founded the National Conservatory in Shanghai. Hsiao pursued drawing and painting at the National Taiwan Normal University where he studied briefly under Chu Teh-chun and Li Chung-shen, both important figures in the development of modern Chinese painting. During his time in Taiwan, Hsiao helped to found Ton Fan Group, the first group of Chinese painters to promote Chinese Abstract Art as a movement, which led to the flourishing of modern art in Taiwan. In 1956, Hsiao received a scholarship from the Spanish Government and took up art in Barcelona. While in Spain, Hsiao became friends with several artists who founded the “Informalism” group, including Antoni Tàpies and Manolo Millares In 1959, Hsiao Chin moved to Milan and later created Punto Art Movement together with several Italian and Japanese artists, including Antonio Calderara and Kengiro Azuma In Milan, he met the dealer Giorgio Marconi with whom he entered into long term collaboration, leading to some of his most fruitful periods of artistic expression. Hsiao’s primary goal was to search for a universal language in art. His interest in Taoist philosophy, leads to his concern with the duality principle, the balance between yin and yang, as well as principles such as simplicity, purity and nothingness. These became the fundamentals in Hsiao’s artistic creations. Furthermore, for Hsiao, paintings are a record of the mind of the painter at a certain space and time, and are visual records of his inner state in which he tries to be in accord with. Created in 1965, the present lot is characteristic of Hsiao’s artistic creations in Milan in the 1960s. It was also around this period that Hsiao engaged himself in hard-edge paintings characterised by striking parallel coloured strips, creating a world of dynamic tension. The zig-zag shapes in orange and blacks in the present lot signifies electric currents or charges of energy, and the two round eye-like circles with radiating concentric circles allude to opposing and complementary forces of life, or perhaps to the sun and moon. The overall effect is a striking abstract work with imagery and colours that pulsate throughout the canvas, symbolising the vibrations of the cosmic force, to convey an expansive universe and spirituality, deeply rooted in Eastern traditions. Read More