WangShui Kurimanzutto New York

Wangshui’s ink on aluminum paintings, showcased at Kurimanzutto New York, unlike traditional paintings that have a static image, provide a flow of abstract dialogues and dynamic experience for viewers. With each step the viewer takes to approach the work, the light reflection on the aluminum canvas changes, leading to shifts in the ink marks. The works themselves are alive, as they require space to be fully presentable to viewers, and their existence as artworks rejects photography that reduces them to mere two dimensional digital graphics. They need viewers’ physical engagement to give them life.

The artist's orchestra of aluminum, light and ink creates a fluid-like layer to the works, as if there were water flowing on the canvas, echoing the artist’s Chinese name character “水 Shuǐ ”, which represents the element of water. Water is the origin of life; it cleanses, nurtures, absorbs everything, and filters out. It has no fixed shape and no set direction. When it is a stream or river, it flows where it can flourish most easily, adapting to the shape of its vessel or the environment it inhabits. When water is ocean, it can be quiet on the surface but has fierce undercurrents in deeper levels. The artworks of Wang Shui too embody elements of water, as the viewer’s perception of the shape of ink changes with their movements and the lighting. There is also a quietness in Wang Shui’s work. Maybe it is the bluish-silver tone of the aluminum, maybe it is the color choice. The overall impression of the work suggests a silent roar, a powerful attack but with an elegant gesture, like the ocean that seems tranquil on the surface but is chaotic and turbulent underneath. They carry a momentum that embodies the force of water, as if it would burst out of the frame.