Utopia and mythical creatures evoke spiritual bonds under painter's strokes

In his most celebrated fable-prose, penned over 1,600 years ago, The Peach Blossom Spring by hermit-scholar Tao Yuanming narrates the adventure of a fisherman living at a place called Wuling, who chances upon a stretch of blooming peach trees, leading him to discover an ethereal village. There, friendly people live in harmony with nature, not bothered by mundane external affairs. The "Peach Blossom Spring" later became a fixed term synonymous with utopia — an ideal place to live or a spiritual haven.

On a spring day in 2015, Huang Liyou, a seasoned painter in Changsha, Hunan province, had a similar encounter. Though not as wondrous as Tao's tale, it was romantic enough to elicit a long-term bond. He recalls a trip with a friend to Zhangjiajie, also in Hunan, a city home to a national forest park distinguished for its extraordinary scenery, including the towering stone peaks that inspired the landscapes in the film Avatar.

What caught Huang's attention was "an easily overlooked mountain slope, but still quite interesting", he says. "The slope, overlooking the Lishui River that runs through Zhangjiajie's city center, is populated with peach trees. In between are jagged rocks. People from a household nearby told us the place is called Duchuanpo (Ferry Slope)."

He was so captivated by the landscape that he frequented it for half a month afterward. "When I first arrived, the peach trees were budding. When I left, the flowers were in full bloom, and some began to wither."

The distinctive slope became his "Peach Blossom Spring", which, for the past decade, has nourished his heart and inspired his creativity. Over 60 vivid oil works that bear witness to the unique attachment between Huang and Duchuanpo are now on show at Numen, his solo exhibition at the Gravity Art Museum in Beijing, running through May 24.

Bao Dong, the exhibition's curator, says that at first sight, one is quickly drawn to Huang's strong Chinese cultural sensibility. Although he works with oil pigments, "the subjects he revisits and his brushwork style are imbued with the rhythm of the traditional freehand xieyi (drawing the spirit) approach of Chinese painting, while the thick pigment layers he accumulates on canvas, the unrestrained strokes, and the tension built on the contrasts of deep shades render a contemporary, expressionist quality to his work".

Bao says the exhibition reveals the various dimensions of "numen" that evoke Huang's painterly imaginations, such as the tales of the mythical creatures mentioned in Shan Hai Jing (The Classics of Mountains and Seas), a collection of myths and celestial lives; also the Chu culture, which includes the rich material and spiritual fruits of the Chu vassal state that thrived more than two millennia ago in several southern and central provinces, including Hunan.

The powerful creatures, such as tigers, dragons and horses, roam, lurk, and flicker across his canvases. Huang says the depictions of these animals transcend figurative representations, as he profiled the cultural totems deeply embedded in people's collective subconscious. The peach blossoms, hollow rocks and dense woods form secret havens not only for Huang but also his audience, beckoning them into these self-contained realms, just as the fisherman did in the tale of The Peach Blossom Spring.

Xu Lian, deputy director of the China National Academy of Painting, says that by adapting The Peach Blossom Spring to a modern sensibility, and propelled by his bond with Duchuanpo, Huang meditates on the philosophy that all things possess a soul and that heaven and humankind are united as one.

While people are moved by the vitality and strength of Huang's work at the gallery, Bao says, they may also resonate with the peach blossoms now flourishing at Duchuanpo.

If you go

10 am-5:30 pm, closed on Mondays.

57 Wujiacun Lu, Shijingshan district, Beijing.

010-5365-3265.