Findlay Galleries is proud to announce a survey exhibition of works from the 1970s through 2020 by the pioneering Chinese Abstractionist, Chuang Che. Chuang Che: the Chinese Abstractionist opens on Monday, March 8, 2021, at Findlay Galleries, New York.

Chuang Che fuses East and West, marrying influence from his Chinese and Taiwanese heritage with European and American Abstract Expressionism. In this collection of works, including recent and earlier never exhibited work, Che's bold, decisive brushstrokes and explosive yet orchestrated compositions harmonize perfectly. His balance of expressive form and rich, vibrant palette combined with various textural depths engage viewers' attention, providing an endless visual journey into his spiritual paintings. The multi-dimensionality of his work is furthered by Che's interpretation of landscape through his traditional calligraphic roots. In his own words, "Through daily contact and experience, the brush strokes and script variations in calligraphy have now become a part of my creative soul. What I want to do is to rediscover the original nature of calligraphy. Wouldn't it be truly magnificent to use the strokes of the running cursive to depict the mountains and rivers?" (excerpt from Cheng Chang-sheng's The Modern Chinese Painting of Chuang Che).

Che was born in Beijing in 1934. His father worked at the National Palace Museum as a scholar and calligrapher, introducing the young Che to calligraphy, an art form that would later directly influence his paintings. As a young man, Che studied Fine Arts at National Taiwan Normal University, where he was taught Eastern painting traditions. However, Che felt that there was more that could be brought to these old ideals. So upon graduating in 1958, Che joined the Fifth Moon Group, a group of Chinese artists who sought to bring modernism to the art world in Taiwan. Shortly thereafter, in 1966, Che received the J.D. Rockefeller III Fund travel grant and used it to move to the United States and continue his artistic studies. Moving first to Iowa and then New York, Che was exposed to the contemporary Western painting styles of the time, most importantly Abstract Expressionism. This style would, like calligraphy, have a profound effect on the work Che produced.

Findlay Galleries has proudly represented Chuang Che since 2006. His work has been exhibited in galleries and museums internationally and was recently accepted into the permanent collection of the Musée National d'Art Moderne ("the Pompidou").