絲縷: Hong Chun Zhang's "Long Hair"

These extraordinary paintings by Chinese artist Hong Chun Zhang (張春紅) caught my eye, and my heart, instantly. Perhaps it is a combination of my own very long hair (at the moment it is even longer than the artist's!), a love for Japanese horror cinema (ah... the ever so beautiful Kwaidan by Masaki Kobayashi－scroll down to see the video clip), and an infatuation with East Asian calligraphy (the colour scheme of black and white), that made me feel compelled to write a blog post on her art, so that it may be neatly recorded in my collection of beloved inspirations.

Although rather different, Hong Chun Zhang's paintings of long hair in a way remind me of French artist Christian de Laubadère's Necks series, another favourite artist of mine whose works so enchant me. I find in both their paintings a kind of stillness and quiescence that is refined, elegant, simultaneously demure, mysterious and sensual. Imagine something being more inviting by closing the door. Something that says so much more by being silent.


"These trees are magnificent, but even more magnificent is the sublime and moving space between them, as though with their growth it too increased." ~Rainer Maria Rilke

 

Three Graces (2009), 3ft x 8.5ft (mid detail), charcoal on paper.

Three Graces (2009), 3ft x 8ft (left detail), charcoal on paper.

Three Graces (2009), 3ft x 8ft (right detail), charcoal on paper.

Three Graces (2009), 3ft x 8ft (each), charcoal on paper.

Twin Spirits #1 (2002), 4ft x 10ft (each), charcoal on paper.

Twin Spirits #2 (2002), 5ft x 20ft, charcoal on paper.

In her own words, "Twin Spirits are large charcoal hair drawings, self-portraits of my twin sister and me. I use long hair to exaggerate our major characteristic and as a metaphor to reveal something that is beyond the hair. These drawings are presented as scroll paintings in order to accentuate the length of the piece and the flow of long hair. The larger than life-size scale creates a three-dimensional effect that extends the meaning beyond the surface. My most recent drawings and paintings on hair, however, is a new approach from personal to more universal. This time, long hair is meant to examine a woman’s complete life cycle." (via)
 

生命之縷 Life Strands (2004), 5ft x 30ft, charcoal on paper.

生命之縷 Life Strands (2004), 5ft x 30ft (side view), charcoal on paper.

Black Hair, from Kwaidan (1964), directed by Masaki Kobayashi.