ILLUSTRATED:
Chu Teh-chun: Tresors, Soobin Art Int’l, Singapore, 1994, no. 5
Chu Teh-chun, Galerie Enrico Navarra, Paris, 2000, color illustrated, p. 169

“Le solide et le suave” exhibits the sophistication of composition honed by Chu Teh-chun over decades of abstract exploration. With ethereal sweeping strokes of white juxtaposed with opaque forms of darkened hues, the artist has created a sense of depth which recalls the construction of landscape within this composition. Pools of molten golden light emanate vibrantly from the darkened depths of the shadowed expanse, with resplendent colors refracted across the spectrum of illumination. The creation of such a rich landscape from abstract forms originates from Chu Teh-chun’s amalgamation of Western abstraction with the spirit and intention of traditional Chinese landscapes. As the artist himself explains, “The landscape portrayed in Chinese paintings is no longer merely the landscape portrayed in reality; the distance between the actuality and the imagination is the realm of the abstraction.” The lot presented here embodies this sense of reaching beyond accepted forms in presenting a standard conception of a landscape, and expanding the aesthetic lexicon with which an artist constructs a scene which is at once idealistic and universal.