LING JIAN 凌健 (CHINA, B. 1963)

LING JIAN 凌健 (CHINA, B. 1963)

Himalaya Buddha 高嶺佛心

2003

Signed and dated

Oil and acrylic on canvas

148cm diameter

-

PROVENANCE:

Galerie Van Der Straeten, Amsterdam;

Private Collection, London/Amsterdam

-

NOTE:

Ling Jian is one of the most technically refined and conceptually distinctive painters to emerge from the first internationally recognized generation of Chinese contemporary artists. In 2003 at his debut solo exhibition in China at Beijing's CourtYard Gallery, Berlin-based artist Ling Jian unveiled a striking new series of imaginative portraits depicting what he calls “highly evolved human beings.” - These works continue Ling’s ongoing exploration of beauty and its connection to the sublime, rendered in mandala-shaped compositions that merge both Asian and European facial features, blur gender lines, and intertwine secular aesthetics with religious Buddhist iconography. Whether portraying divine figures or mortal muses, each face is imbued with sensual elements, with slightly parted lips, half-lidded eyes, flawless skin and enhanced by either divine grace or hints of cosmetic intervention. The result is a vision of physical “perfection” that is at once mesmerizing and disquieting. Beneath these hyperreal portraits of beings more beautiful, androgynous, and otherworldly than the average viewer lies a subtle critique of contemporary beauty and its entanglement with spirituality. In today’s culture, beauty is no longer an abstract ideal but a shifting, trend-driven concept that is shaped season by season like fashion itself. Ling hints at this evolution through the almost post-human quality of his figures, their techno-beauty simmering beneath the surface. His brush becomes a surrogate for science, refining even the visage of Buddha with subtle, painterly enhancements. At CourtYard, Ling’s circular canvases were suspended like oversized peepholes or arranged like massive wheels along the gallery floor. Behind them, he painted directly onto the walls with fluid, colourful pigments bleeding and blending in a deliberate disruption of the gallery’s pristine white space. Drawing from his own Buddhist beliefs, Ling Jian challenges the superficiality of modern beauty standards through sacred symbols and spiritual nuance. His portraits of these ethereal “beauties” are not merely aesthetic exercises, but they invite viewers to move beyond the mundane and reconnect with the sublime.

The present painting belongs to a rare and contemplative series produced in the early 2000s, when Ling Jian departed from fashion-inflected portraiture and turned instead to Buddhist themes and traditional Chinese aesthetics. These early Buddhist-themed works are exceptionally scarce on the market, as the artist soon transitioned into his more stylised, pop-contemporary mode. As such, they represent a pivotal moment in Ling Jian’s evolution and one marked by a deeper engagement with spiritual iconography and historical lineage. The serene, androgynous faces which are rendered with exquisite photorealism and subtle surrealist distortions, echo the spiritual calm of Tang dynasty sculpture and ancient Chinese devotional art.

Ling Jian has held solo exhibitions including Ling Jian at Jue Lan Club, New York (2016); Song of the Ancient Birds at Tang Contemporary Art, Hong Kong (2016); Nature Chain at Klein Sun Gallery (2015); Brain and Heart at Gana Art Center, Seoul (2014); Moon in Glass at Ullens Centre for Contemporary Art, Beijing (2011); and Moon in Glass at Today Art Museum, Beijing (2010). He has participated in numerous group exhibitions, such as On Sharks and Humanity at Parkview Square, Singapore, and Hong Kong Maritime Museum (2017); Mutual Supplementary and Wedge at Shanghai Liu Haisu Art Museum (2017); Observation/Reference/Gesture Contemporary Painting at Ringling College of Art and Design, Sarasota (2016); On Sharks and Humanity at the National Museum of China, Beijing (2015); Face at Minsheng Art Museum, Shanghai (2012); Changing Vistas: Creative Duration at the 5th Chengdu Biennale, Chengdu (2011); Lovers Pieces – Contemporary Art from Five Private Collections at Kunstmuseum Mülheim an der Ruhr, Germany (2010); MEDIALE at Deichtorhallen: Center for Contemporary Art and Photography, Hamburg (2010); and the Chinese Oil Painting Biennale at the National Art Museum of China, Beijing (1993).