Yang Jiechang’s Early Ink Works: The Progression from Experimental Ink to Hundred Layers of Ink in the Late 1980s

Yang Jiechang’s Early Ink Works 

The Progression from Experimental Ink to Hundred Layers of Ink in the Late 1980s

Artist: Yang Jiechang

Duration: 2026.3.22 - 5.5
Address: L2, Sea World Culture and Arts Center, 1187 Wanghai Road, Shekou, Nanshan District, Shenzhen, China 

Ginkgo Space is pleased to announce “Yang Jiechang’s Early Ink: From Experimental Ink to the Development of Hundred Layers of Ink in the Late 1980s,” the artist’s first solo exhibition with the gallery, opening on March 22 in Shenzhen.

In 1989, Yang Jiechang first presented his large-scale monochrome ink series Hundred Layers of Ink at the exhibition “Magiciens de la Terre” held at the Centre Pompidou in Paris. This exhibition marked the beginning of series Hundred Layers of Ink, which continued to develop over the following decade. The present exhibition focuses on the dynamic evolution of the artist’s pictorial language from experimental ink to Hundred Layers of Ink, and presents the representative large-scale triptych Mountain from this period.

Hundred Layers of Ink is generated through sustained and repetitive acts of making. Employing the fundamental materials of traditional Chinese ink painting—water, ink, and xuan paper—the work is created by repeatedly applying layers of ink across the surface of the paper, sometimes dozens or even hundreds of times, until the sheet can no longer absorb additional layers. As the ink accumulates, the surface gradually develops a deep yet luminous black. At the same time, the prolonged saturation and covering cause the xuan paper to warp and wrinkle, producing a distinctive material texture. At this point, the repeated action on the surface comes to an end, while the sedimentation of time, the transformation of material, and the tension of spatial presence remain embedded beneath the surface.

Yang Jiechang’s ink practice in the late 1980s was rooted both in his early training in the traditional Chinese ink system and in a deconstruction of the language of ink itself. Drawing formal references from traditional visual sources such as bird-and-flower painting and objects, he replaced representational depiction with non-figurative color fields and emphatic brushwork, allowing traces of action within the painting process to become a key structural element of the image. In 1988, after relocating to Heidelberg, he produced the “Soy Sauce Drawings,” an important stage in his material experimentation. Using light and dark soy sauce on discarded paper, he made sketch-like studies after rubbings of stone inscriptions; once the liquid dried naturally, the paper developed layered tonal variations and distinctive textures. These investigations of form, structure, and material gradually became internalized and transformed into the conceptual source of Hundred Layers of Ink, through which the works moved toward formal reduction while achieving a more concentrated spiritual and conceptual expression.

Although Hundred Layers of Ink emerged within a Western artistic context, its language remains deeply rooted in Eastern traditions. In Yang Jiechang’s practice, Eastern and Western intellectual frameworks continually reflect and inform one another: the spirit of the Chinese contemporary literati that the artist seeks to sustain intersects with the Romantic tradition embedded in German culture, as well as with the broader contemporary cultural context of Paris and Europe. Together, these elements form the conceptual core of the Hundred Layers of Ink series.

By retracing the development of this formative period, the exhibition presents the milestone works through which Yang Jiechang gradually completed a transformation of artistic language and a deepening of conceptual inquiry in the late 1980s.