LONDON.- At this year’s Asian Art in London and continuing into January 2016, Aktis Gallery will host an exhibition of works by renowned Chinese émigré artist and former recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature, Gao Xingjian. There will be approximately 20 works on paper including, Marchers (2013) and Midnight (2013), and an accompanying catalogue includes previously unpublished poetry by the artist; selected quotations will be printed around the gallery to accompany selected paintings, and a reading of the poem will play over the sound system. A 35-minute film, created by Gao, will be available at a viewing station for guests to quietly observe. This exhibition gives a nod to the traditions of both East and West, the fusion of which has been of long standing interest to the artist in all genres.

The work of Gao Xingjian is built on the traditions of ink, calligraphy and the art of the literati, although not restricted to painting; Gao is an internationally recognised filmmaker, poet, novelist, essayist, painter and playwright. The artist takes inspiration from Chinese Buddhism that introduced pictorial representation, as well as the use of black ink to painting, and Daoism whose universal energy is symbolized by the forces of yin and yang. Combined with influence from the west, after being forced to seek refuge in Paris in 1987, abstraction was a move that welcomed change from the artist’s more formal Chinese technique.

Traditionally, Chinese painting favours the line, an extension of calligraphy; line reduces tension between emptiness and fullness, between yin and yang. Early in Gao’s career, he abandoned line in favor of ink-washes and, with the exception of the human silhouette, other figurative outlines are almost completely absent from Gao’s work and only then, suggestive rather than representative. A good example of this is Marchers (2013).

Gao Xingjian has recently been the subject of a major retrospective at the Musée D’Ixelles Brussels in collaboration with the Belgian Royal Museum of Fine Art.