I have been labelled as being "gimmicky" by the camp of traditional brush artists. In my defense, I was motivated by circumstances.
The traditional way of mounting Xuan on paper or silk is great. Unfortunately, having paintings mounted in a scroll format demands skilled craftsmanship. There just aren't too many of these floating around when one is in a town where such crafts are rather obscure and esoteric. I could have mounted the Xuan on paper and present it in a picture frame, but I see two limitations. The first one being the glass frame imposes a glare, and museum grade non-glare glass is not economical and not often available in the odd sizes. The second factor is that the painting loses the vivaciousness once dried. I like the wet look so much better.
When I first fooled around with Xuan-Boo, I was instantly attracted to it. The texture of the canvas and the color luminosity being restored by applying the protective gel. The application of gel was to protect the surface of the painting from the usual indoor elements. I had no idea that it added to the depth of the color. That truly was serendipity in action.
I really like a lot of the "metallic" prints of photographs and the way they were presented. No frames, just sort of floated from the wall. That was my inspiration for devising the Suliao Xuan Ban technique. I compromised on the absence of frame by creating a clear margin around the painting, allowing it to float on the display wall.
There are ongoing debates about the merits of wet versus dry mounting. Chinese wet mounting has been the gold standard in the traditional way. Having done both I would say that a nicely done wet mounting is superior to the dry mounted one. This is especially apparent when one can hold that piece of work in your hands. It just feels organic and not mechanical. A point that the wet mounting camp stresses is that a dry mount is irreversible. Museums have been know to re-mount a piece of deteriorated ancient work and restore the painting. This would not be possible with dry mount. But then again, how many pieces of our works gain immortality? Of course the main reason for dry mounting is that the execution generally requires less skill, and is definitely not as time consuming.
Some people at the local galleries balk at the idea that the painting is mounted. They asserted that the painting must retain the flexibility of being able to be presented in the frame of the customer's choosing. In other words, the consumer might not like the way I presented it, and would need to replace the frame. They are in effect paying money for the painting itself and nothing else.
Recently I had a chance to present exclusively my two methods of mounting at an exhibition. I did that obviously to satisfy my own biases and I really don't expect the audience to know one way or another.
It was gratifying to see how my presentation was so vastly different from everybody else's.
These are paintings done in the Xuan-Boo fashion:
These are done in the Suliao Xuan Ban fashion:
Call me a goofball, call me a gimmick, I'm just not satisfied with the status quo.
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