AT THE GALLERIES:Chinese artists deliver originality and polish

The surge of interest in the West in the exploding Chinese art market is a phenomenon that has everything to do with the global economy.

Highly disciplined art schools in the mainland have produced several generations of Chinese artists who have studied Western methods and, in turn, produced work that is highly influenced by the later history of European art, particularly portraiture.

This work is very commercially viable and highly palatable to the American market enchanted with the kind of nostalgia that looking back creates. It often results, however, in art that seems as if the artist is using an Eastern voice to ventriloquize a Western idea.

Sometimes, Chinese contemporary art can be fascinated, even obsessed, with technique. But that’s not always the case. A voice emerges that seems genuine and original, less concerned with style than with substance.

Some of these voices can be seen at Mandarin Fine Art (1294C South Coast Highway).

Ming Lihua has two very different canvases on view. A vibrant abstract with exuberant smears of paint, “Intensity” (oil on canvas, 35x20) is dominated by a saturated red, but thin layers of yellow and even a touch of lavender create a balanced composition.

What makes “Intensity” interesting is Ming’s application of texture. It’s a sand-mixed streak of grey that runs across the canvas, accompanied by what seem like drops that focus the eye in the center.

Those same drops become almost pointillistic in “Morning Dress” (32x32). This painting is representational, a Chagall-like portrait of a woman surrounded by flowers and clear glasses. Again, the painting shows facility with color and line with the lightness of a truly inspired composition.

In all cases of influence in art, you have to look for the individuality, the elusive characteristic that allows you to recognize the work of an artist even if you’ve never seen it before.

Although I find the huge difference in subject matter troubling (it’s a pretty big intellectual leap between abstract expressionism and Fauvism), there’s no doubt that Ming has a way with paint.

But I was most impressed by the paintings of Li Zengguo. “Journey of No Return” is a large-scale (78x48) abstract in oil. The crimson is so dominant here, it threatens to consume all your attention. Don’t let it; this canvas takes study.

The canvas is covered with interesting variations in tone. Any given quadrant of the canvas contains layers of paint, some blended, some marbled or carved with a palette knife, all working toward harmonizing the composition, to keep the colors moving.

Two figures share the foreground, one on a horse. There’s a checkerboard motif that repeats in the composition, and mountains in the background. They are full of energy and exhibit a strange individuality, as if there were models for them.

Other canvases by Li on view exhibit a similar sense of color combined with depth, unusual in such abstract forms.

“Accompany the Sun” (29x36) and “Land of Promise” (51x62) also show an unaccountable optimism in forms that are quickly yet deftly executed. The pale yellows of “Land of Promise” are particularly wonderful, accentuated by the crossing black lines that form the figures.

You can also find examples of traditional portraiture in the gallery, the best examples are from Hu Jundi.

“Matriarch” (oil on canvas, 20x20) shows what is best and strangest about contemporary Chinese art. It’s well executed, disturbingly beautiful: an Asian woman with immaculate skin gazes directly at us. Hu’s virtuosity is showcased in the soft lamp light falling on her face.

But there’s something exploitive about Hu’s work, in portrait after portrait of ethereally lovely women. Hu also has several examples of giclee prints and serigraphs at the gallery.

The viewer should remember that both of these are just words for reproductions: one done on an oversized inkjet printer and the other is a synonym for screen printing.

Artists do this to mass-produce a particularly successful work, and this somehow always shows. The work looks machine-done, and the dreamy, swirling fantasy women in Hu’s reproductions would be no doubt much more interesting in the original.

Originality, it must remembered, is a priority of the moderns, and valuing it over craftsmanship is a particularly American concern. When you have found both originality and perfect execution, then you have found genius.