The Silicon Valley Asian Art Center & Narx Gallery in Santa Clara will host an exhibit organized by the American Society for the Advancement of Chinese Arts (ASACA), showcasing splash ink, traditional paintings, and calligraphy December 14 – 22. The opening ceremony December 14 at 2 p.m. is open to the public, and admission is free.
The show includes 70 pieces of art by 23 ASACA members and master painter and instructor Hou Beiren.
“Combining contemporary techniques and age-old methods, many of the artists paint on rice paper with Chinese ink and color in a style called pomo. “Po” means splash or breaking/pentrating, while “mo” is the Chinese word for ink,” says ASACA secretary Karen Tseng.
In November, the Liu Haisu Art Museum in Shanghai, China, exhibited the work of some of the ASACA artists that will be featured in the splash ink painting exhibit. Also, the Zhejiang Art Museum in Hangzhou, China, featured a solo exhibit of Hou’s paintings, organized by ASACA and the art center.
“Hou, at age 97, continues to break new ground with his poetic, colorful and unrestrained style,” says Tseng.
Hou, also known as Paul Pei-Jen Hau, “is considered a trailblazer in Chinese art, on a par with Picasso in the Western world,” according to a November 18 article in “The Shanghai Daily” newspaper (http://www.shanghaidaily.com/hangzhou/Exhibition-features-works-of-96yearold-master/).
The Silicon Valley Asian Art Center & Narx Gallery, tucked away on the fourth floor of the Central Computer Building at 3777 Stevens Creek Boulevard, has become a leading northern California center of Chinese American Art since it opened in 2004.
“We’re well-known in the Chinese community in California. In the coming year, we plan to expand our contacts to the Asian and mainstream communities,” says Jianhua Shu, art center curator. “Our mission is to create a fine arts museum in the heart of Silicon Valley.”
The art center has a 4,000-square-foot exhibit hall, where it features an average of two exhibits a month of Chinese paintings, calligraphy, and sculptures by established and new Bay-Area artists and renown visiting artists. A solo exhibit that ended December 1st showcased the ink and acrylic word-line paintings of San Jose State University Professor Emeritus Liqing Liang.
The art center also hosts art seminars, demonstrations, and music recitals. In January 2011, it hosted a charitable exhibit for the non-profit Evergreen Education Foundation, raising $300,000 for education projects in rural China. Also, it publishes handsome catalogues of select exhibits, some viewable online at www.artshu.com.
“It’s wonderful to know that the Silicon Valley Asian Art Center holds exhibits of Asian art work year around and is so close to home. I love the art center and the art work,” writes San Jose resident Ling-Ling Chern, who was introduced to the center by Tseng, one of the 23 featured ASACA artists and a colleague of Chern’s in the Chinese Language Immersion Program at Miller Middle School in San Jose.
