The collaboration between painter Arnold Chang and photographer Michael Cherney creates a dialogue between two mediums and provides a new way of reading white ground. Since 2009, Chang and Cherney have created a series of artworks that merge painting and photography. To make these works, Cherney first selects one or two details from his photographs and prints it on the kind of Chinese painting paper that Chang prefers. He then sends a number of these sheets to Chang, who responds by painting in a way that connects with the patterns on Cherney’s photograph. Both artists’ practices are informed by the aesthetics of traditional Chinese painting. Their visual languages—despite the difference in medium--resonate with each other. The white ground in these works constitutes part of the photographic space as well as that of the painted space. It can be seen as Cherney’s photographic index of mountain ridges, as well as Chang’s painting of an imaginary landscape emerging out of the clouds.

Curated by Fu Qiumeng Fine Art