Chen Qi
(b. 1963)
Water Series: Chen Qi’s expressions of water are quite risky and daring. There is no normal visual center in the picture, just the undulation of the ripples rendered in light and dark. But this really is water, the water we see, drink and wash with every day, the waters of the North Sea in Chuang Tzu’s Aimless Wandering, the water that Confucius sighed about when he faced the river, the water that in ancient Greek philosophy could never be stepped in twice. It has no set appearance. In nature, water is both the most abstract and the most concrete material. It is, in and of itself, a metaphor for change, and a metaphor for time. Time passes swiftly like flowing water. What flows in this work is the mark of time.