”Water with Ink on glass – then  Ricepaper on the Top”

 

Limited topic helped me a lot with first the empact of China. And that topic was,  how to find something out of ink, water and rice paper.

And the heavy weight tradition in the background – from red rooster´s neck feather brushes to the wide world of rice papers and then the whole chinese calligraphy tradition modifying thoughts with totally different  ways than we have learned in my home country with the latin letters.

On this journey I have got help among others Gordan Novak, Pan Jian Feng as well as from Finland and China some suprising actors like for example Jeffrey Spalding, Liu Jian, Katri Ikävalko and Ari Pelkonen. And each One in Their very own way.

Using the symbolic language has been to me a big issue, specially in perceiving/outlining. And this means not writing but drawing and painting. And as extraordinary guides to the world of characters I mention from South-Europe Henri Michaux, Antoni Tapies and Miquel Barcelo. Each one of them owe an ability of fast expression. An ability that differs from the asian writing tradition uniting written letters and symbolic images. And again into the bargain we get the meditative mind control with fysical and mental process.

For my part, it felt like partly opening the curtain between the Chinese and the European world with the help of the Flow mode opening the subconscious and on the same using the fast monotype technic. Big Thanks go to my mentor Gordan Novak, the creative graphics emeritus professor who helped me with the ink monotype technics in Tao Hua Tan international Artist Retreat center. Also the discussions with painter, art critic and curator Jeffrey Spalding helped me to understand the differences between the western and chinese world. And there are differences, eventhough global predatory capitalism is making jerry-built fake bridges and for that reason confusing the both cultures even more.

My friend and colleague Pan Jian Feng from Shanghai and Porvoo has also opened me the world of chinese ink painting and on the same everything concerning it like some mind controlling technics and the filosofies, China history, ink painting history and attitude, the process of ink painting and also some things from contemporary chinese culture. And this is not a small package…

And on the other hand visual artist and printmaker Ari Pelkonen has opened me a big world throgh a small seeming technical problem called mounting ink painting on an other paper. And everything that includes it, well, it is an other story.

Petri Hytönen somewhere between Finland and China in may/june 2019

Ps. RIP Jeffrey Spalding