16 May 2017 –28 May 2017
Gallery 10 | Admission Free
Artist Ding Yi in front of his album “70 circles”on diplay at the Ashmolean Museum in May 2017.
Abstract artist Ding Yi came to visit the Ashmolean Museum on the 17th of May 2017 for an “In conversation” event with Chinese painting expert Professor Shane McCausland from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London.
70 circles (detail), 2013, accordion book, pencil and acrylic on rice paper, 35 x 648cm © Ding Yi. Courtesy Timothy Taylor, London.
Born in Shanghai in 1962, Ding Yi is a leading contemporary artist in China. He has been making abstract paintings using crosses and grids since the late 1980s. He spent his early years learning traditional Chinese ink and oil painting at Shanghai University before becoming interested in Western modernism. After experimenting with different painting styles and studying the works of French painters such as Paul Cezanne and Henri Matisse, he settled on the crosses and grids as his signature style. Ding Yi often works on large scale paintings.
Display of “70 circles” by Ding Yi , Gallery 10, Ashmolean Museum.
The discussion around Ding Yi’s artistic practice took place to celebrate the temporary display of Ding Yi’s work ’70 circles’ (2013) in Gallery 10, 16–28 May. This accordion album is 6.48 meters long, comprising monochrome series of varying circles with abstracted grids.
The display is a temporary continuation of the Beyond the Brush display in Gallery 29.