Upcoming Exhibition “River of Time” – Ma Hui
River of Time 似水流年 – A solo exhibition of Ma Hui 马蕙
Curator: Selena Yang
Exhibition Opening Date: 1 Dec 2024, 16:00 – 19:00
Exhibition Period: 1 Dec 2024 – 31 Jan 2025
Venue: Oooit Art – Werkspoor International Art Center
Address: Nijverheidsweg 27 (Unit P) , 3534AM Utrecht, the Netherlands
Art work information is partly available on our Artsy site.
Mahui employs the traditional Eastern ink medium, a Western abstract approach, and a unique narrative style to express her reflections on time, nature, and Eastern and Western cultures.
Since I curated Ma Hui’s solo exhibition, Red and Black: Between Two Worlds, at the Times Art Museum in Beijing in 2016, I have been deeply engaged with her work. Ma Hui is a singular artist with a distinctive voice. Having lived in the Netherlands for over 30 years, her art seamlessly integrates Eastern and Western cultures. She uses a uniquely feminine balance of strength and gentleness, combining the ethereal quality of Eastern ink painting with the structural sensibilities of Western abstraction. In doing so, she allows viewers to feel the cycle of life and the passage of time within the delicate interplay of water and ink. This year, I am thrilled to curate this new exhibition, River of Time, especially for her.
Water holds a deep significance in Ma Hui’s life. Her early years were shaped by the turbulent waters of the Yellow River in Ningxia, and her later years by the serene canals of Amsterdam. Perhaps this continuity of memory imparts her work with a fluidity that feels both tender and powerful, capturing water’s softness alongside its unstoppable force. Her compositions resonate with a minimalistic strength, where bold uses of blank space and layered brushstrokes create a profound and ethereal visual effect. In her recent works, she uses Pu’er tea as a medium, a choice full of symbolic resonance. Its rich, earthy tones mirror the depths of the Yellow River, and as it gradually seeps into the paper and merges with the ink, it unfolds like the steady flow of time across the surface.
In addition to the tea stains and the traditional grayscale of ink, Ma Hui introduces unique color elements into her pieces. Sometimes, she uses peony blossoms from her garden mixed with cinnabar to create distinct red hues; other times, she burns charcoal herself to incorporate it into the ink, lending it a textured, tactile quality. Her choice of paper also reflects her sensitivity to material. In addition to rice paper, she works on copperplate paper, which controls the spread of water and ink, emphasizing the ink’s sheen. In her Organic Series, for example, Ma Hui uses thick copperplate paper to create cell-like textures within the ink, as though opening a window into a microscopic world of life.
Ma Hui’s ink paintings balance feminine sensitivity with resilience, emotion with intellect. Each of her works embodies an inner strength that flows from her brush in gestures that are gentle yet resolute. The waves and sediment of the Yellow River during her childhood reappear in her compositions like scenes in a montage, forming a profoundly personal river of time, her own cycle of life.
– Selena Yang, Oct 2024
Ma Hui was born in 1958 in Chengde, China, attended the Xi’an Academy of Fine Arts in 1977, and graduated in 1982. In 1987, she moved to Europe, studying and working in Switzerland and the Netherlands. She now resides in Amsterdam, where she established her own art studio. In 2010, Ma Hui received the Aemstelle Prijs for her work in the Netherlands. Her works are collected by Shanghai Duolun Museum, Shenzhen He Xiangning Art Museum, Chengdu Landing Museum, COBRA art museum, Leiden University Asian Library, SER Sociaal Economische Raad, Dutch Embassy Beijing etc.