In this series, Yang Ding-Xian works with a palette that recalls a garden. Here, reminders of what was and what could be are signified not by modern visual cues for development. Such a narrative has no room for concrete structures or urban architecture, instead it returns to a story of life and vitality as seen in hard stone cutting through soft moss – symbols that tell another story of balance and control altogether.

“Moss is the point, stone is the line, which constitutes life’s surface,” he explains. This is visible in several works, wherein soft, sage green “points” appear to grow on the canvas, scattering themselves about a foundation established by the harder, more certain lines that lead the eye and focus one’s perspective. Neither element seems to interrupt the other or act as an intrusion. As it would occur in nature, moss and stone appear to grow in harmony.

“Freedom between the lines,” in this case, also refers not only to the tendency within modernism to bend or break existing traditions, but to this symbiotic relationship between stone and moss, or what flourishes when certain elements are given time and space to grow. This could also be read into how today’s Chinese artists are applying the careful and meditative brushwork in which they have been trained, to the manipulation of Western media. This same preoccupation with balance—between East and West, nature and modernity—affirms Yang Ding Xian’s faith and fidelity to what his heritage can offer him as a contemporary Chinese artist. ----Alice Sarmiento