｜Artist Chan Kin-Chung(1939-) in front of his work. ｜(Left) Chan Kin-Chung, The Autumn Forest at Seine River, 2010, Oil on canvas, 100x100cm

Born in Longchuan County, Guangdong Province, China in 1939, Chan Kin-Chung has demonstrated his interest and talent in painting since his student days. The Chinese academic system at that time emulated the Soviet arts education with a particular emphasis on basic training in painting, which allowed Chan to develop a high level of painting skill.

In 1969, Chan went to France and enrolled at the Beaux-Arts de Paris. In the mid-1970s, he employed the technique of realistic painterliness to create his inimitable Composition Series (Doors and Windows Series), a crucial step on the road to his success in Paris’ art scene that also earned him continuous invitations to stage exhibitions. In the mid-1980s, Chan substituted tranquil, idyllic scenes for microscopic, confined ones as the subject of his works, devoting himself entirely to landscape painting. In the 1990s, Chan returned to China several times, where he found many enchanting views worth painting. As a result, he decided to establish an atelier in Shenzhen, and has shuttled between France and China since then to date.

Chan’s paintings are primarily realistic in style. Surrounded by various schools of art soon after he arrived in Paris, Chan tried to create abstract paintings for a time, yet he failed to convincingly orientate himself toward this approach. Contrarily, Chan is fairly familiar with realistic painting. Innumerable material and vocabulary in figurative subjects beckon, inviting Chan to further explore this realm and produce brilliant works as sui generis as zeitgeisty.

Chan’s oeuvre comprises two series. The first is Composition Series (Doors and Windows Series) which depicts quotidian corners with minimalist compositions. The second is Landscape Series which features natural scenery. Even though the two series seem like chalk and cheese, they are subtly connected with each other by the spirit of “Chan’s composition.”

｜Installation view  ｜(Left) Chan Kin-Chung, Composition No. 46, 1979, Oil on canvas, 146x97cm

｜Installation view  ｜(Right) Chan Kin-Chung, View of Brittany No.5, 1992-1993, Oil on canvas, 97x146cm

From the geometric patterns of the doors and windows to the contrast between natural scenes, Chan’s paintings are consistently minimalist and cautious. Their compositions ooze a saturated aura of gentleness and quaintness.

Jacques Leenhardt, ed., Chan Kin-Chung: A Poetry of the Things Seen (Paris: Librairie You Feng, 1995), p30

Chan Kin-Chung, “In My Own Words”, Paintings of Chan Kin-Chung (Guangzhou: Lingnan Art Publishing House, 2017), p21

Wai-lim Yip, Chan Kin-Chung Thirty Yeats in Paris (Guangdong Museum of Art, ed., Macau Publishing House, 2001), p18

Xia Shuo-Qi, Chan Kin-Chung Thirty Yeats in Paris (Guangdong Museum of Art, ed., Macau Publishing House, 2001), p14

The easily ignored doors, windows, leaves, and corners come up as the subjects of Chan’s Composition Series (Doors and Windows Series). The compositions feature the traces of people’s quotidian existence without showing any human figure. Chan adopts consummate technique of realism to highlight the diachroneity of these objects.

｜Composition No. 3-82 (partial)  ｜Chan Kin-Chung, Composition No. 3-82, 1982, 73x100cm, Oil on canvas

｜Composition No. 7-84 (partial)  ｜Chan Kin-Chung, Composition No. 7-84, 1984, Oil on canvas, 73x100cm

Apart from the choice of subjects and the depiction of details, this series is one-of-a-kind because of its “composition,” which is largely trimmed by Chan and hence a confined segment from a specific viewing angle. He reconciles natural expression and prudent coloring, creating minimalist lines, shapes, and color blocks, which in turn gives this series an art photography-like quality. Such selection and representation ingeniously transmute the quotidian, narrative corners into the microcosms for the exploration of artisticity and the pursuit of painterliness.

Chan Kin-Chung, “In My Own Words”, Paintings of Chan Kin-Chung (Guangzhou: Lingnan Art Publishing House, 2017), p21

Zhang Yan-Feng, “Chan Kin-Chung’s Painting Art”, Paintings of Chan Kin-Chung (Guangzhou: Lingnan Art Publishing House, 2017), p10

Shao Da-Zhen, “Melting of Chinese and Western Culture, through the objective to express the feeling and emotions—The Art of Chan Kin-Chung’s paintings”, Paintings of Chan Kin-Chung (Guangzhou: Lingnan Art Publishing House, 2017), p4

Based on the extensive experience he gained from the Composition Series, Chan shifted his focus onto outdoors in the mid-1980s. He accepted the warm embrace of Mother Nature and embarked on his Landscape Series that covers the scenery in France and China, including Landscape of Richard Valley, Park of Buttes Chaumont, View of Brittany, and Village in Guangdong.

Chan’s landscape paintings share several characteristics. First of all, the scenery tends to be arranged in a horizontal belt. Forest often occupies the largest space of the composition, followed by water surface. The sky, a common subject among conventional landscape paintings, is either rarely seen or shown as a narrow strip along the upper edge of the composition, which is deemed little more than the extension of the general state of mind.

The second characteristic is the use of different hues. We may discern the salient chiaroscuro in the landscape paintings Chan completed when he was traveling around France. From the leafy shade to the golden green treetop, and from the shady tree to the crystalline water surface, the polarized tones mirror the scenery in reality. The subtleness and tranquility of the slow-moving river are particularly foregrounded when the shades of trees and the river water work in tandem.

In terms of his paintings of mountain villages in Guangdong, Chan further treats “green” as the keynote from which he developed various shades of color. The densely imbricated shades of green distinguish themselves from one another, and the composition is studded with a couple of white walls of farmhouses, which not only enriches the expressive power of colors, but also brings a subtle touch of human life to natural landscapes.

The third characteristic of Chan’s landscape paintings is “detail.” The detail here refers not so much to “realistic” portrayal as to the painterly approach that blurs the contours of branches and twigs and thus turns them into irregular planes, as if each tree were covered by thin veils in green and yellow, thereby exhibiting colorful and volumetric lumps.

｜View of Marne River No.3 (partial)  ｜Chan Kin-Chung, View of Marne River No.3, 2008, Oil on canvas, 97x146cm

｜Village (partial)  ｜Chan Kin-Chung, Village, 2009, Oil on canvas, 114x162ccm

Art critic Zhang Yan-Feng appraised Chan’s Landscape Series as follows:

We shall not regard Chan’s landscape paintings as the sum of his pursuit of technique and personal style, even though we’ve gained a better understanding of their characteristics. “I try to infuse my feelings into my works,” Chan once said so. By dint of his painting brush, Chan expects his landscape paintings to embody not only aesthetic beauty but also metaphysical meaning, through which his artistic practice attains consummation.

Shao Da-Zhen, “Melting of Chinese and Western Culture, through the objective to express the feeling and emotions—The Art of Chan Kin-Chung’s paintings”, Paintings of Chan Kin-Chung (Guangzhou: Lingnan Art Publishing House, 2017), p4

Zhang Yan-Feng, “Chan Kin-Chung’s Painting Art”, Paintings of Chan Kin-Chung (Guangzhou: Lingnan Art Publishing House, 2017), p11-12