February 1, 2022 (Palo Alto, CA) - Qualia Contemporary Art is pleased to announce Like Gravity, an exhibition of paintings selected from the expansive body of work of New York City-based artist Emily Cheng. Cheng’s enigmatic and vibrant paintings chart the movement of an indefinable yet familiar energy. Through symmetrical geometric “templates for the body,” Cheng explores different ways of existing within one's own human form and its relation to the universe. Her vivacious and mystical style evokes the work of renowned artist Hilma afKlint.

Like Gravity will be on view from February 8 through March 18, 2022, with an opening event on February 12 from 4:00 to 7:00 PM with the artist. 

The large-scale artworks in Like Gravity are created with flashe and/or acrylic on canvas. The paintings exude a rich array of bright colors and geometric shapes which combine to create a powerful sense of movement and action within the otherwise static works. Cheng’s artwork reflects her continued fascination with the relationship between the physical and the metaphysical, drawing from a multiplicity of traditions rooted in her American upbringing and Chinese ancestry; her brushstrokes recall characteristics of Chinese figural paintings. Symmetrical, diagrammatic shapes and lines interact with soft areas of color and loose, curvy brushstrokes. Her art becomes a vessel expansive enough to hold both science and faith in its embrace. 

Resonating throughout the exhibition is imagery that taps into what Cheng refers to as the “potential of unseen things.” Her paintings, while suggestive of living beings and natural, earth-bound shapes, move the viewer beyond the mortal plane to reflect on the enormity of the universe. The suggestive nature of the art offers a rare freedom to interpret and engage in dialogue with the work in ways unique to the perception and experience of each viewer. In turn, Like Gravity becomes a grounding space for meditation and imagination to flourish. 

About Emily Cheng 

Emily Cheng received a BFA in painting from Rhode Island School of Design and attended the New York Studio School for three years. Her solo shows in New York include The Bronx Museum, Plum Blossom Gallery, Winston Wachter Fine Art, Bravin Post Lee Gallery, David Beiztel Gallery, and Lang and O'Hara Gallery. Emily has also had solo shows at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei (MOCA, Taipei); Zane Bennett Gallery in Santa Fe; Hanart Gallery in Hong Kong; Louis Vuitton, Kowloon, Hong Kong; Metropolitan Museum of Manila; and the Ayala Museum in Manila, Philippines; Byron Cohen Gallery in Kansas City; The Cincinnati Center of Contemporary Art; Schmidt Dean Gallery in Philadelphia; and Timezone 8 in Beijing and Shanghai. 

Her work has been included in many group exhibitions such as at MASS MoCA; Guangzhou Triennial, Guangdong Art Museum, China; Contemporary Art Museum at USF, Tampa, Florida; Yerba Buena Contemporary Art Center, SF; National Academy of Arts, NY; American Academy of Arts and Letters, NY; Katonah Museum of Art, NY; Hong Kong Art Centre; Sotheby’s, NY; Shanghai MOCA; Contrast Gallery, Shanghai; Juan Silos Gallery, Santander. 

Emily Cheng has been the recipient of several awards including the New York Foundation of the Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts, Pollock Krasner Award and a Yaddo Fellowship. In 2007, Timezone 8 published Emily Cheng, Chasing Clouds, A decade of studies, a compendium of studies made over the last ten years with essays by Johnson Chang and Kevin Powers.

February 1, 2022 (Palo Alto, CA) - Qualia Contemporary Art is pleased to present Illusive Fields, painter Xu Hongming’s first solo exhibition in the United States. In philosophy, approach, and practice, Xu Hongming has been breaking the barriers of conventional Chinese art for more than four decades with his investigative practice in pure abstraction. The exhibition will showcase a group of works created between 2018 and 2021 — a collection representative of the artist’s impressive growth and immense contribution to the diversity of contemporary painting styles in China. Illusive Fields will be on view from February 8 through March 18, 2022, with an opening reception on February 12th from 4:00 to 7:00 PM.

Each of the abstract, ethereal pieces in Illusive Fields is painted on silk with water-soluble pigments and pigment powders, backed by paper and mounted on a thin metal sheet. The materials are layered into rich fields of color, which dissolve and meld into each other in a transformative alchemy. Without the distraction of a canvas, it is as if only the ink itself is visible to the viewer, creating the sense that the pigments are floating. The nebulous, overlapping fields of light and color create a sense of depth and movement, making it appear as if a metamorphosis is perpetually in progress. Both the series’ title, “Not Clouds, Not Fog, Not Qi,” and the date-based titling of each individual piece, defy representational associations by redirecting the focus to the process and material. In the artist’s explicit repudiation of concrete imagery, he challenges the viewer to rest in the often uncomfortable ambiguity of pure abstraction - a space in which the philosophical realm of the work becomes accessible. 

Despite the absence of abstraction from the dominant contemporary art scene in China, Hongming has always been deeply drawn to the style. As a largely self-trained artist, he wasn’t exposed to or constrained by the prevailing doctrines of figurative art taught in formal arts education at the time. From the start, he has been able to follow his own artistic vision, transcending cultural, aesthetic, and physical conventions in his works. Hongming’s practice straddles a dynamic tension between the traditional and the modern. His goal was to infuse pure abstraction in the Western tradition with Daoist philosophy; He did this by de-emphasizing the materiality of the work and rejecting representational imagery associated with traditional Chinese landscape painting. Still, the strong cultural connection to the legacy of ink painting can be seen in his use of water-based pigments. “I want to reinvigorate the act of painting in the Chinese understanding or perception of the ink painting tradition,” he said. His artistic process extends traditional Chinese aesthetic sensibilities and values without sacrificing them in favor of the current, dominant Western discourse surrounding abstract art. 

During Hongming’s formative years as an artist, the world experienced intense changes in both politics and culture, including the steep rise of global capitalism, stark wealth disparities, and increasingly eclectic music and fashion trends. The influence of the time can be seen in the abstract details in his pieces, which seem to depict an uncertain balance between dispersion and concentration, embodying the dramatic transformation of those decades. As art critic and curator Gao Minglu said, Hongming’s work “does not represent completeness and wholeness but rather development and incompleteness.” These themes also reflect the artist’s interest in Chinese philosophy and Buddhist mandalas, and their associated ideas of continuous change, fluidity, and interconnectedness. 

Illusive Fields highlights the artist’s unique sense of spatial awareness; his planes of vision seem to extend into three dimensions without adhering to renaissance rules of one-point perspective. In his airy abstract environments, the work slowly reveals itself, color rising to the surface and then retreating into a haze of smoke — like looking up at a cloudy night sky, waiting for the stars to flicker into view.

About Xu Hongming (徐红明) 

Xu Hongming was born in Hunan province, China in 1971. His work has been shown in many venues nationally and internationally, including National Art Museum of China (Beijing), the Ullens Centre for Contemporary Art (UCCA) Beijing, Today Art Museum (Beijing), Yuan Art Museum (Beijing), Wall Art Museum (Beijing), Shanghai Art Museum (Shanghai), OCAT Xi’an (Xi’an), Buffalo University Art Gallery (New York, US), Larunxinge Museum (Netherlands), MACRO Museum (Rome, Italy). 

His paintings are in the collections of Yuz Museum Shanghai, Shanghai Art Museum, Shenzhen Art Museum, M+ Museum (Hong Kong), and White Rabbit Collection (Australia). He lives and works in Beijing.