Hong Kong, 15 April 2025 - To mark its 10th anniversary in Asia, Phillips will present a series of specially curated programmes, and among the highlights of the celebration is Liu Dan: Morphogenesis, a selling exhibition staged by PhillipsX, the platform operated by the global Private Sales team at Phillips. On view from 22 April to 12 May at Phillips' galleries in Hong Kong's West Kowloon Cultural District, the exhibition brings together 26 important works by Liu Dan, a prominent figure in contemporary Chinese ink art, in what stands as his most extensive solo presentation to date. The show spans themes such as dictionaries, flowers, rocks, and his iconic Grand Landscape series from recent years, systematically tracing his artistic journey over four decades and revealing how ink art transcends the boundaries between Eastern and Western aesthetics. Select works on display will be available for purchase through Phillips' private sales.
Dina Zhang, Head of Modern & Contemporary Art, China, Phillips, said: "We are honoured to collaborate with Liu Dan to present this landmark exhibition at Phillips' Asia headquarters. From his early ink and drawing works to his iconic Great Landscape series, Liu Dan has redefined Chinese ink art internationally through his unique artistic approach. His works are deeply rooted in traditional heritage and engage in a dynamic dialogue with contemporary visual concepts, establishing a new paradigm. We look forward to welcoming collectors and art enthusiasts to our West Kowloon galleries to experience this extraordinary artistic journey."
The leading works
The exhibition showcases a series of the artist's latest creations, including the monumental Primal Vibrancy (2025), an ink on paper measuring 527 centimetres wide. The work redefines the contemporary possibilities of Shan Shui (landscape) as a vessel for Eastern spirituality through scientific inquiry and cross-cultural perspectives, transforming physical rock formations into ineffable visions that establish a new order beyond materiality. Another leading highlight, Sunflower (2025), employs traditional Chinese ink-on-paper techniques with a drawing-like approach: the magnified bloom pulses with silent yet monumental vitality on Xuan paper, where the rhythmic breath of Eastern ink brushwork merges with contemporary visual syntax.
Also created in 2025, Rock from Studio "Xiao Gu Shan" I depicts a scholar's stone rendered with the artist's signature meticulous brushwork, its composition evoking the grandeur of towering peaks when viewed from afar. The upper section features "Record of Artificial Mountains," a text by the late Ming to early Qing dynasty monk Dokusho Shoeki, exemplifying "painting with words" while elevating garden aesthetics to a cosmological dimension. A further standout, Taihu Rock aka "Yu Ling Long" (from Yu Garden, Shanghai) (2024), reinterprets the Song dynasty scholar's stone aesthetic through contemporary ink language, capturing the quintessential "wrinkles, perforations, slenderness, and penetrability" of the legendary Taihu rock and embodying the classical philosophy that the universe is contained within the stone.
Four decades of evolution
The presentation also traces the artist's experimental range across his career. In Dictionary (2009), Liu employs traditional Chinese ink techniques alongside a photorealistic approach, dramatically enlarging the scale of the book to create an overwhelming and immersive visual experience while retaining the subtle, lyrical quality unique to Eastern brushwork. Drawing No.1 (1993) represents a pivotal experimental work from the artist's transitional period, marking a crucial shift from traditional ink painting to contemporary expression: using only charcoal on Xuan paper, the piece emulates the subtle tonal variations of ink's "five degrees of ink tone." The exhibition further features In the Time Immemorial, a monumental 24-metre-long epic previously shown at the Suzhou Museum, whose grand scroll unfolds five geological epochs and condenses 4.6 billion years of Earth's history into a single visual narrative, posing the question: "Can art become a time machine?"
Selected works on view include:
About the artist
Born in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, in 1953 into a family of educators, Liu Dan began learning Chinese painting under Mr. Ya Ming in 1972 and enrolled in 1978 in the postgraduate program of the Jiangsu Academy of Chinese Painting. He moved to the United States in 1981 and has settled in Beijing since 2005. As the first contemporary Chinese artist to use rock as the subject of a painting, he began giving special thought to the subject in the early 1980s, suggesting that rocks perform the function of "stem cells" in the formation of a new Shan Shui consciousness. His works have been exhibited at institutions including the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the British Museum, the Guimet Museum, and the Suzhou Museum, and have entered collections in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, the United States, and Europe.
Visitor information
Liu Dan: Morphogenesis is on view from 22 April to 12 May, 10 am to 6 pm (closed on 1 May and 5 May), at Phillips Asia Headquarters, G/F, WKCDA Tower, West Kowloon Cultural District, No. 8 Austin Road West, Kowloon, Hong Kong.
(Press Release)
