Ye Fang(b.1962)
i) Yan Mountain I ii) Yan Mountain II
ink gold leaf mineral pigments on paper;
set of two
executed in 2007
each: 97x90 cm
(38 1/4 x 35 1/2 in)
EXHIBITED
New Wu School – Suzhou Academy of Traditional Chinese Painting exhibition: National Art Museum of China, Beijing, October 2007/ Jiangsu Provincial Art Museum, Nanjing, May 2008/ Shanghai Art Museum, Shanghai, February 2009
Literature and art – Ye Fang Artwork Exhibition，Annual Artist Special Exhibition– Art Taipei, World Trade Center, Taipei, May 2007
Material Combination – Dialogue between Chinese and Greek Artists, Shanghai MOCA, Shanghai, August 2008 / Thessaloniki Contemporary Art Museum, Thessaloniki, October 2008/ Mihalarias Art, Athens, December 2008
LITERATURE
Art Taipei Catalogue, 2007
New Wu School – Suzhou Academy of Traditional Chinese Painting exhibition Catalogue, 2007
Material Combination – Dialogue between Chinese and Greek Artists Catalogue, 2008

Ye Fang has two significant perspectives on art – to infuse Chinese gardening with modern concepts and to live with art. Art is a form to present culture which changes constantly over time. He reinvents the elements and art vocabulary through his interpretation of the modern culture. Poetry and painting have long been the living state of ancient scholars for centuries and there is no reason for us to rule it out. Chinese garden is a habitat where Ye works and lives in; it is also a subject matter commonly found in his artworks. He transforms his fondness for Chinese gardening as well as his cultural aspiration into art. He reinterprets traditional Chinese gardening with his personal philosophic concepts. In 2003, he designed and completed Nan Shi Pi Ji, a modern garden in Suzhou. From three-dimensional landscape painting and installation to Chinese metaphorical characters and symbols, they are proofs to demonstrate the creativity of the gifted artist and his concept of contemporary gardens. He has been praised as the representative of contemporary gardening by art critics. Nan Shi Pi Ji is an example of inheritance and reinvention. It was named the tenth garden after nine classical Suzhou gardens being recorded in the documentary of world heritage by UNESCO. Gardening is an ideal art form for Ye to study cultural inheritance and to promote the literati lifestyle. Yan Mountain I & II are examples of his reinvention of landscape and rock, articulating the simplicity and poetic charm of literati with simple brushstrokes.