‘Space and Nothingness’

Singapore—Pearl Lam Galleries is proud to present Space and Nothingness, a group exhibition by Beijing-based performance and conceptual artist Cang Xin (b. 1967), and landscape painter Pan Jian (b. 1975). The show examines the impact of Eastern philosophy and ink painting tradition on their recent practices, focusing on the meditative qualities of space and emptiness.

Chinese ink painting privileges space like no other artistic tradition. White space is regarded as a void or nothingness, it is composed by the painter’s marks for the viewer’s meditative contemplation. In fact space in itself, the form of nothing, is considered the hallmark of aesthetic elevation. Space is the negative of gesture or human action; it is what has been left behind after the work of restless agitation. Cang and Pan’s contemporary interpretation of traditional painting translates this into the third dimension. Their work takes on the status of “space-nothing”, the negative form of their physical and gestural marks upon the world. While ink painting restricts the articulation of space on paper, the work of these two artists explores the meditative properties of space in the real world.