Estimate
TWD 4,600,000-5,500,000
HKD 1,183,000-1,414,000
USD 152,400-182,200
Sold Price
TWD 4,800,000
HKD 1,243,523
USD 159,521
Signature
Signed on the reverse ting, and titled give me a hug in English, and dated 77
+ OVERVIEW
Walasse Ting's paintings have always been as straightforward, natural and naive as his person, with bold, vibrant colors and daring modes of expression that reveal his true temperament. Free, unconstrained, and unfettered by the worries of the world, Walasse Ting was both an artist and a poet who found endless beauty in life. He liked to paint flowers, and enjoyed painting women who cham as flourishing flowers, even more. Through his brush strokes, the many emotions of women and even their innermost secrets are expressed upon the canvas. Rare is the viewer who remains unmoved by the joyousness overflowing out of his painted images.
The young artists under the COBRA movement advocated the renouncement of rules and theories, and created a new art based on freedom and a positive life philosophy. In terms of the techniques of artistic representation, Expressionist approaches were primarily adopted. The vibrant, lively colors and the unbridled audacity of the images are thus liberated from the shackles of the past, established aesthetic forms, and no longer catered to the taste and preferences of the bourgeoisie. In the artwork titled Give Me a Hug, the generous application of yellow and green hues are extremely striking, particularly because it was through these colors that Ting had audaciously delineated the exquisite details of the female form. Out of the spirited portrayal flows a pulse of unceasing vitality, a primal desire completely free of inhibition. Together with his most intimate affections and sentiments, the artist had through this painting bared his favorite subject to the world. The fluidly and freely-sprayed acrylic paint as well as the fine, candid lines of crayon inscribed upon the image are the hallmarks of his artistic style. The natural, unabashed confidence of the female subject is incorporated delightfully with Ting's intrepid artistic vocabulary so as to offer the viewer a highly charged and erotically sensual visual impact that is both powerful and explicit.
All of this corresponds with the personality of Walasse Ting, who was a self-proclaimed Casanova, and illustrates the perpetual appreciation and devotion he harbored towards women, sex, love, and art throughout his lifetime. He used vibrant colors to create countless artworks of lavish opulence, while the women born of his brushstrokes are undoubtedly the masterpieces into which he had instilled the entirely of his heart and soul.
Modern & Contemporary Asian Art
Ravenel Spring Auction 2017 Taipei
Sunday, June 4, 2017, 2:00pm