From lotus flowers on paper to colorful porcelain and Chinese silk tapestry, nearly 90-year-old artist Chen Jialing has spent a lifetime exploring how traditional Chinese ink painting can speak to the present.
An exhibition tracing that journey will open on September 24 at the Guangdong Museum of Art (Bai'etan). "The Present Beyond Time: Chen Jialing Art Exhibition" will bring together works spanning the artist's long career, offering audiences an introduction to one of the leading figures of the New Shanghai School (Haipai) of ink painting.
Born in Hangzhou in 1937, Chen has lived and worked in Shanghai for decades. In 1958, he entered the Chinese Painting Department of the Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts, now the China Academy of Art. He initially studied figure painting under the artist Pan Tianshou.
In the 1970s, Chen expanded his practice under another influential painter, Lu Yanshao, studying landscape painting and calligraphy. He later turned his attention to flower-and-bird painting.
This broad training, from figures and landscapes to flowers and calligraphy, gave Chen a deep grounding in the traditions of Chinese painting. It also gave him the freedom to move between them. Rather than simply following established formulas, Chen began looking for ways to make ink painting feel fresh and contemporary.
A different kind of Chinese ink
Chen's paintings are often immediately recognizable for their clean lines, restrained compositions and airy, almost weightless quality.
His approach to ink is less concerned with faithfully reproducing the appearance of things than with capturing their spirit through line, rhythm and space. A lotus may be reduced to a few sweeping strokes; a landscape may become an arrangement of simplified forms and empty space.
There is a sense of spontaneity in his work, as if the brush is moving before the artist has had time to overthink it. This is part of what Chen means by returning to the natural and unforced qualities of painting. His work has been described as having the freshness of a child's way of seeing — direct, playful and unconstrained by rigid rules.
Tradition as a starting point, not a limit
Chen's approach is rooted in a belief that innovation in Chinese painting should not require abandoning its cultural identity.
He has advocated for innovation while preserving an "Eastern sensibility," placing particular importance on the relationship between painting and calligraphy. In his work, a brushstroke is not merely a contour around an object; it carries its own rhythm and energy. He also favors stylization over photographic realism and draws on the distinctive spatial language of Chinese painting, where blank space can play an active role in the composition.
For Chen, these are more than artistic techniques. They lead toward an aesthetic ideal he describes through three qualities: clarity, stillness and harmony. This philosophy helps explain why his work can feel both deeply traditional and surprisingly contemporary. Instead of importing a ready-made modern visual language, Chen has spent decades asking what new forms might grow from the foundations of Chinese painting itself.
Six chapters of an artistic journey
The Guangzhou exhibition is organized into six sections: Roaming the Mountains, New Rhythms, Seeing the True Nature, Forceful Brushstrokes, Beyond the Image and Returning to the Vessel. They present Chen's artistic exploration from brushwork and visual form to his broader reflections on art and Eastern philosophy.
For visitors unfamiliar with Chen Jialing, the exhibition offers more than a retrospective. It provides a window into one artist's nearly seven-decade conversation with Chinese art.
Chen's conversation with painting, however, is far from over. Even at almost 90, he continues to work and experiment, using ink to respond to the world around him and to express human emotions. Across paper, porcelain and silk, his work keeps returning to a simple but enduring question: how can an ancient artistic language continue to grow?
The answer, in Chen's work, is not to freeze tradition in place, but to keep the brush moving.
More info:
Exhibition: The Present Beyond Time: Chen Jialing Art Exhibition
Date: September 24 to November 29, 2026
Venue: Hall 9/10/11/12/13/Central Hall, 3F, Guangdong Museum of Art (Bai'etan)
(Address: 19 Bai'etan South Road, Liwan District, Guangzhou, Guangdong)
Reporter | Li Fangwang
Photo | Guangdong Museum of Art
Video Editor | Li Fangwang
