Lu Jun | Across the Water

Lu Jun | Across the Water
Digital Ink & Wash Paintings

A recipient of 2009 Florence Biennale’s Gold Prize in Photography, Lu Jun’s genre-blending technique has earned him recognition in innumerable international art magazines including Art Manager, Chinese Photography, Art Gallery, and Britain’s Genius List of 100 Top International Artists.

Lu Jun’s work takes its cue from one of China’s most well-known art forms — traditional landscape painting — but his process is wholly contemporary. His photography is “digital ink and wash.” First he patiently observes the movement of ink in water, as it flows into strands of varying ebbs and flows. Water will always find a natural course, unguided and unforced. Lu Jun photographs the paths of the ink with a camera. Then, through digital manipulation, he carefully gathers strands from each image to weave into a new form. Through this process, the ink becomes both the subject and the medium.

The core concept of his works is to redefine the Chinese traditional culture and the essence of ink & wash by digital technology. By photography and digitalization, he elaborates the Taoist philosophy: “Taoism created the law of nature, which was one; the law of nature created yin and yang, based on which everything in the world can be generated, which were two; one plus two equals three, which constitutes everything in the world.” Another one is, “Everything on earth is generated by being, and being comes from nothingness.”

A drop of ink can naturally illustrate the doctrine of Taoism, which he adopted to guide him in his works of art. He thinks it is from abstract to representation, and the image, particularity of ink and water, can be visualized. The ink dropped in water is abstract and nil, but it can be utilized to express his ideas freely between actual and virtual. It was the realistic photography and the virtual digitalization that brought him into a world of fun games, in which he hopes to explore new possibilities of the time-honored ink and water cultural heritage of the millennium with contemporary vitality.”

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