Han Qing (Chengdu, China, 1965)
Han Qing's paintings show the city streets as seen in the light of the night. Like so many Chinese cities, Chengdu is rapidly changing in the rush of modernization. Without a plan, flyovers are built right through residential areas, ugly apartment buildings are rising and traffic in the city is getting busier all the time. But the things that are often so ugly during the day can take on a certain beauty at night in the light of streetlamps, car headlights, advertising pillars or shop windows. The nocturnal hustle and bustle in the streets and squares provides a fascinating spectacle of lights. With the depiction of the "street light", Han Qing shows the transformation of the ugly everyday reality into a mysterious nighttime landscape.
The work of the Chengdu painters is characterized by a predominantly monochrome use of color and by visual disturbances such as paint splatters on an otherwise smoothly painted surface. With the predominantly purple-brown color of the night in this series of paintings and the apparently randomly applied thicker brushstrokes, Han Qing can be called a new exponent of the Chengdu School.
