Zen simplicity

The audiences for Cao Jigang's works normally describe what they are looking at as "landscape paintings" although the artist borrows as few techniques and elements from classical Chinese landscape painting as possible, to deliver a minimalist, indifferent atmosphere. A rejection of details and unsaturated colors — usually varying degrees of neutral gray are used as the undertone — gives his paintings a lack of emotion and a sense of loneliness, like that of a wild, barren field. "How to remove more detail from the composition is, at the moment, the priority in my work, how to depict less and less," Cao says. The mystic desolation he presents, as well as the Zen-style void and the touch of poetic rhythm that results from the juxtaposition of black, white and gray, suggest a dialogue between Cao and the ancient masters of the ink tradition like Ni Zan, during the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368), and Dong Qichang, during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644). The artist's current exhibition in Shanghai, titled Skypath, displays his minimalist attempts from recent years, and adds the Western technique of tempera painting to his work in pursuit of a state between the past and present, the East and the West. The exhibition at the Bluerider Art gallery runs until Nov 19.

10 am-7 pm, closed on Mondays. 133 Sichuan Zhonglu, Huangpu district, Shanghai.