Eagle / Colour on paper with frame / 121 x 243 cm / 2017
The exhibition “Bathing in the Spring Breeze – Paintings by Liu Mengkuan”, organized by the Macao Museum of Art (MAM), under the auspices of the Cultural Affairs Bureau, will be inaugurated on 26 July (Friday), at 6:30pm, at the Special Exhibition Gallery of the Handover Gifts Museum of Macao. The exhibition features 90 paintings by Liu Mengkuan, showing how the artist inherited and innovated the painting techniques of Lingnan School. All are welcome.
Liu Mengkuan is a founding member of the Hong Kong Art Association and President of the Mu Feng Art Club. In 1977, he started learning painting with Yang Shanshen, a second-generation master of the Lingnan School, and became a full-time painter in 1983, being an active member of the third generation of the School. In 2003, Liu founded the Mu Feng Art Studio in Hong Kong and taught Lingnan School painting courses at the Hong Kong Museum of Art and the Hong Kong Arts Centre. In 2012, he founded the Mu Feng Art Club and dedicated himself to promoting the art of the Lingnan School.
With a fresh and pure style of painting, Liu Mengkuan is good at painting flowers, animals, birds, fish, insects and landscapes. His works have fully inherited the Lingnan School’s spirit of drawing from nature while combining it with Western painting techniques, and the works displayed in the exhibition are a testimony to the strength of his skills. In his painting Eagle, he used meticulous lines to delineate pine branches and the fierce bird of prey, depicting the feathers in layers of ink wash, thus revealing Master Yang Shanshen’s deep influence on him. In his painting Red Cliff Legend, inspired by the poem Reflection on the Ancient Red Cliff – To the tune of Niannujiao by Song-dynasty poet Su Shi, he depicted a man playing qin against a vast river flowing eastwards and created a visual world that is both dynamic and tranquil, expressing his understanding of “Eastward flows the mighty river, sweeping away the heroes of the past”, as well as his pursuit for this noble spirit.
To give the visitors a deeper understanding of the Lingnan School of painting, the Macao Museum of Art will hold the activity “Guided Appreciation of Lingnan School of Painting with Technique Demonstration” at the Handover Gifts Museum of Macao in the afternoon on 27 July (Saturday), in which Liu Mengkuan will introduce participants to paintings by the Lingnan School masters, share his own artistic experience and demonstrate the techniques of representing the major themes of the Lingnan School paintings. Participants will have the opportunity to receive an original work of the artist. For more information about the exhibition and the appreciation session, please visit the MAM website at www.MAM.gov.mo. For enquiries, please contact MAM through tel. no. 8791 9814 during opening hours.
The exhibition “Bathing in the Spring Breeze – Paintings by Liu Mengkuan” is held until 25 August. The Handover Gifts Museum of Macao, located at Avenida Xian Xing Hai, NAPE, is open daily from 10am to 7pm (no admittance after 6:30pm), including public holidays, and is closed on Mondays. Admission is free.
