55

Yellow Ants Art Lab presents a special project by Wang Shuzhong, under the title of “TRIGRAM DRAWING BOOK", to celabrate Gallery 55’s 20th Anniversary from October the 11th through December the 14th, 2025.

The "I Ching" (also known as the "Book of Changes"), as one of the sources of Chinese thought, does not directly provide images or symbols but offers a unique cosmology and methodology. Wang Shuzhong spent almost two years completing a pictorial interpretation of the "I Ching" on nearly 800 pieces of 70 by 46 centimeter-sized parchment with ink.

There is a profound intersection between Wang Shuzhong’s artistic practice and the philosophical ideas of the "I Ching", particularly in terms of cosmology, dynamic generation, and the philosophical implications of emptiness.

Wang Shuzhong takes the flow of QI as the core of his creation. The ink gradations and line trajectories in his works echo the intangible movement of QI rather than the reproduction of fixed forms. He regards emptiness as the openness of perception and the blank space of form, and the blank areas in his paintings serve as mediators for the flow of QI. Wang Shuzhong rejects the image-based reproduction and instead captures and translates relationships, and the variations in ink density and the interlacing of brushstrokes in his paintings construct a non-solidified visual network. The ink seepage and layering in Wang Shuzhong’s works form a visual trace of temporal extension, much like the interweaving of space and time presented by the overlapping of hexagrams.

Inspired by the concept of establishing images to convey meaning, Wang Shuzhong abandoned the traditional figurative depiction of landscape painting and instead created images of energy fields - constructing a perceptual symbol system through the gradation of ink and the density of lines. Viewers need to decode the images through intuition rather than cognition. The gradation of ink’s dryness and wetness, and the speed and weight of brushstrokes, form a tension similar to the waxing and waning of YIN and YANG in his works. Wang Shuzhong’s use of ink and water is a visual practice of the YIN-YANG relationship, such as the generation of the trajectory of QI through the penetration and resistance between ink and paper. His technique is not imposed, but hidden within the picture: triggering rich perception through the minimalist language of ink, water, and paper, and the technique itself becomes an invisible social perception. Wang Shuzhong confronts the deterministic logic of the algorithmic age with a non-solid visual system, emphasizing the intuition and contingency of the human body in his paintings as a form of body weaving, resisting the alienation of perception in the era of mechanical reproduction.

Wang Shuzhong’s art can be seen as a visual extension of the philosophy of the l Ching in the contemporary context: he transforms the QI theory and theory of change of the I Ching into material practices of ink and water; he corresponds to the WUJI in I Ching with emptiness, making the picture a field for the generation of perception; and through non-representational language, he re-establishes the perceptual connection between humans and the hidden dimensions (such as QI, time, and relationships). This creation is not only an inheritance of tradition, but also a reactivation of the core propositions of Eastern philosophy with contemporary art language - in an era dominated by algorithms, reasserting the value of the fluid, uncertain, and holistic perception advocated by the I Ching.

Wang Shuzhong was born in Lingbi, Anhui province, China in 1987. He graduated from the Art Institute, Shanghai University with a M.F.A. in Art History in 2012. He won John Moor Painting Award in the category of Contemporary Chinese Ink & Colour in 2025.

Gallery 55 was founded in 2005 in the M50 Art District in Shanghai. Over the past two decades, The gallery has been committed to providing a platform for emerging artists, new artistic attempts, and experimental projects within a progressive curatorial framework. It aims to discover and promote young artists with independent and innovative spirits, and to question, reflect on, criticize, explore, and expand the boundaries of art through challenging artistic practices.

The "Yellow Ant Art Laboratory" (YAAL) is an independent project initiated by Gallery 55 in 2013, which is not for commercial purposes. It aims to systematically present experimental and focused projects, providing a practical field for artists to sort out their artistic creation trajectories. From 2013 to 2025, the artists who presented projects in the Yellow Ant Art Laboratory include: Li Binyuan, Hu Qingtai, Xu Xinlang, Cai Dongdong, Yesu, Zheng Jing, He Ling, Li Gang, Li Liao, Yu Ying, Gao Yuan, Wang Rui, Liu Weiwei, Su Xiangpan, Bu Yunjun, Zhang Yehong, NIT (Qi), FREEMANN (Chu Sixian), and P Shanren (Wang Shuchong).