ink on rice paper, 109 by 120cm

Provenance: Michael Goedhuis

Footnote: Liu Xuguang completed his PhD at Beijing’s Tsinghua University with a “Theory of Essence Consciousness”, subsequently he elaborated this concept during art study visits to Japan. His research was based on a single character from the oldest Chinese character tradition, marks of “bu” (卜) found on Chinese bone writing. On the basis of this character he created works, often using large sheets of rice paper, on which he drew a dense web of “bu” (卜) marks, drawn with oily earthy work ink and iron dust made himself. The lively vibration of all the “bu” (卜) marks follows a single direction, but none of them is absolutely the same as the other. Thus they become the epitome of a many-voiced foundational act of civilization that translates direct verbal exchange into the permanence of objectifying signs, a new, social form of memory. His search for the “Essence of Consciousness” is therefore not a regressive longing for the origins, but a link of contemporary culture with its foundations, still handed down in China.

2007年 刘旭光（生于1958年），痕迹2007-11，宣纸水墨