Shou

The title I decided to give to this exhibition, Shou, the Chinese word for Longevity, is also the logo of the gallery La Galliavola.

Every Chinese ideogram contains in the visual form as well as in the pronunciation, a very deep content that goes beyond the simple meaning of the word. Each of these hieroglyphic has a very strong visual appeal, that's important for both the shape and the content. Their poetical value shows itself in a pictorial symbol that put together the thought, the emotion and the movement.

Show seemed to me the best way to title this exposition that for the first time of La Galliavola is based on an unusual combination: on one side, oriental antiques, that's my own experience, on the other the paintings of a very talented contemporary Chinese artist, Tang Guo, whose works springs from the research on Chinese ideogram.

Through an abstract artistic style, Tang Guo is able to make his own personal vision of the world meet with his Fathers artistic and cultural tradition. He has an harmonious taste for the beauty and alternates between fast, strong strokes and the slow time of Chinese writing that's poetry and painting together.

The artist makes by himself the colours and the paper according to the laws of ink painting. Following the teaching of the Masters and of the calligraphic tradition, the paintings by Tang Guo show new point of view. As he says: "My paintings have been influenced by antique culture: by Han literature, frescos, Buddhist surra, sheets in some way close to the past. These elements and calligraphy have a close connection. They are still alive. Some of them are old, fragile and own a broken beauty. I always look for these kind of connection and I hope that this research emanated from my works".

I didn't know Tang Guo before seeing his work. When I first saw his paintings I immediately felt all this, I almost felt the same feeling when I touch an antique object. Even if the object is very old, far from my everyday life, it can give me very familiar feelings. It's like if I have been always in touch with it. Before the paintings by Tang Guo I had the same state of mind. They represent something that can seem lost: Shou, the meaning of our long life.

I guess it is worth knowing them. These paintings can result an important key to understand the enigmatic and fantastic Chinese universe. Next to every painting. I put an antique object. My aim is to suggest a comparison, a contact, historical, artistic and cultural connections.

My deepest desire is that my guests could feel the light link between the past and the present day culture and that for a moment they could feel the timelessness of artistic invention.

Patrizia Chignoli