On March 17, 2023, the APSMUSEUM spring exhibition The Power of the Rock grandly opened, co-hosted by APSMUSEUM and L+ Mall in Lujiazui.
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APSMUSEUM's spring exhibition, The Power of the Rock officially opened on March 17, 2023. This exhibition marks the debut of APSMUSEUM's Sino-Japanese Mineral-Color Art Exchange Series. The exhibition is guided by the Shanghai Academy of Fine Arts, with special support from the Consulate-General of Japan in Shanghai and the Shanghai Association for International Cultural Exchanges. It is co-presented by APSMUSEUM and L+MALL Lujiazui, organized by APSMUSEUM and the Mineral-Color Painting Studio of Shanghai University, and co-organized by Guseiin Choanji Temple in Japan. The exhibition showcases outstanding contemporary mineral-color artworks from China and Japan through a group exhibition format.

APSMUSEUM aims to introduce the enduring art of mineral pigment painting to a wider audience through the display of contemporary Chinese and Japanese works, highlighting its profound cultural significance. Through this Sino-Japanese cultural exchange, we hope to liberate traditional art from rigid conventions, presenting it to the world and integrating it into a more open, free, and diverse modern civilization.

01 Introduction

This exhibition features 25 accomplished Chinese and Japanese artists, all active practitioners in the creation, research, and pedagogy of mineral pigment painting. Their works—spanning figurative and abstract expressions, from portraiture and landscape to conceptual art—reveal the evolving dynamic of contemporary mineral pigment painting and underscore its growing presence in academic art education. The divergent historical and cultural contexts of Chinese and Japanese artists yield distinct aesthetic perspectives, enriching the exhibition with remarkable diversity. Herein lies the true value of The Power of the Rock | Sino-Japanese Mineral-Color Art Exchange Series.

Upwelling Cloud

The artist has always had a strong interest in the paintings of the Japanese Momoyama period and Chinese landscape painting. The pure and simple yet grand and majestic style of the Chinese ink and wash landscape painting, and the use of gold foil and mineral green in paintings of the Momoyama period, despite their seemingly contrasting quality, create a quiet yet dynamic atmosphere.

Window

Windows have long been the theme of his works. His works transform seemingly ordinary daily scenes into something magical through keen observation, poet-like interpretation, and superb utilization of materials. Mr. Iwakura uses mineral colors freely, controlling the alternating infiltration of coarse and fine particles with precision, and thus making traditional Japanese painting techniques and modern color aesthetics closely compatible.

Gaze

The painter delved deeply into the techniques of Italian Tempera painting and European altar painting. In addition to the showcase of techniques and materials, a strong religious-humanistic concern is evident in a large number of his works. From the perspective of a philosopher, he looks down upon the world with a sense of pity and compassion. This piece, Gaze, uses rare colors such as mineral blue and gold foil and employs a flat-plane composition to depict a mother holding her child, looking directly at, and inquiring the viewer.

Dangquan River after Snow

The work depicts the northern part of the Mogao Caves after a winter snowfall, with the winding Dangquan River in the near distance merging with the caves in the distance, evoking the quiet and mysterious atmosphere of the Buddhist caves and grottoes.

Rich Earth II

Under the blazing sun and azure sky, the heat clings to the body and the ancient foreign city alike, enclosing a world where time seems to stand still, and the air is heavy with the scent of earth.

Impressions of Jodhpur 2019

About ten years ago, I traveled to an ancient city in India called Jodhpur, also known as the “Blue City.” I wandered in and around the old town for more than ten days. The ordinary yet touching scenes—a window, a door, a potted flower, a parapet, a wall, a house—and the simplicity and warmth of the local people deeply moved me. I felt the gentle temperature of the world, and quite naturally, I expressed those feelings through my paintings, using the materials that best suited them.

Rebirth

Rebirth captures the fleeting moment when lapis lazuli breaks away from nature, transforming into a symbol of renewal—like the instant a newborn leaves the mother’s body and the umbilical cord is cut. If the natural beginning of life is birth, then art represents a second birth. The golden shimmer within the lapis lazuli, glimmering like distant stars, becomes an inner compass guiding each individual toward self-realization and spiritual perfection.

Mobile Cabin Hospitals · White

The recurring “point” motif is transformed here into a bed that embodies hope. White symbolizes the guardian angel, while green represents the multitude awaiting salvation. During the pandemic, the mobile cabin hospital became a home of hope — the most beautiful shelter born from adversity.

Kasaya

The work draws inspiration from the surviving Buddha statues within the caves, expressing an unwavering faith that endures through the passage of time. By combining mineral pigments, natural sand and clay, and fiber materials with “incense ash,” the piece seeks to keep the imagery alive through the dynamic interplay of textures and materials.

Prajna

“Non-self” refers to that which is neither “me” nor “mine,” nor the essence of “I.” To perceive the unreal as “non-self” is to transcend illusion. When one contemplates the impermanence of feeling, desire and attachment are calmed; when one contemplates the impermanence of consciousness, one realizes that consciousness, too, is neither self, nor possession, nor essence.
In today’s complex and ever-changing world, people easily magnify the ego and the self, losing their true heart and original intention, often falling into confusion and suffering. I draw upon the meditative Buddha figures from the Kizil Grotto murals, transforming them into a contemporary visual language. I hope that viewers may resonate with this work—only through the state of non-self can one let go of obsession and greed, and find inner freedom. The radiant aura of the Buddha is reinterpreted through stainless steel, symbolizing a beam of light that guides us back to our true selves.

Roles

“The body as a vision is only a certain illusion of the body conveyed by different skin colors. We are so absorbed in these illusions of meaning that we forget the body itself. The illusion of the body, formed by various meanings, has transcended the body and replaced it. Its deceptive reality never ceases to interfere with our judgment, so that the innocent body is no longer innocent, and we can only grasp ourselves and understand others through an imaginative bodily cognitive experience. We indulge in all kinds of body fables, playing with all kinds of body imagery, human, non-human, and ultimately human.”

The City 6

The cityscape, like the passage of years, never remains unchanged—yet there is always a corner of memory that cannot be easily erased. Some traces embody the strength of towering buildings; others resemble memories repeatedly buried and reawakened. This work seeks to evoke the complex and elusive emotions that arise when confronting the city, using the raw simplicity of gravel, hemp, and paper fibers combined with mineral pigments dissolved in water.

Unidentified Site

Unknown building on unknown site.

Extension

Mailing packages is a common behavior pattern in daily life, and the personal information attached to the package becomes an identifiable data parameter. By refining the visual information of the packages, the work completes data visualization from three perspectives: point, line and surface, reflecting the author’s thoughts on the relevance of individuals, commodities and society in the information age.

Untitled

“Rock color is a pure material with a pure and extreme beauty of its own, with a strong expressive power. I try to combine silk screen and coal dust to make a contemporary translation of the realistic literary masterpiece (The Golden Lotus) using the technique of printmaking and the silk screen process. For me, only through the expansion of materials and production techniques, the refinement of the language and formal structure of rock color, and the further discovery of meaningful connotations in the traditional cultural spirit with a modern composition, can I come out of a path that is entirely my own.”

Mismatch

The work is two rock-colored paintings of the same size and different thicknesses, only one of which is exhibited in this exhibition. The design concept ranges from the alternating dislocation of local graphics, the graphic rendition of the picture to the interposition of local graphics and the sense of unevenness and convexity of the medium itself.

Disorder

Chasing light in a world without subsistence.

Never Say Goodbye

“I was always touched by some scenes in life. One day in late summer, I rode around the village. The hut in the woods by the pond was open, and the humble little room was dark in the sunlight, with a faint sadness, as if it had just experienced a parting. I like the rock-colored particles and let them scatter in the traces I carved with a knife, both scattered and constrained. Isn’t this state a reflection of life?”

The Crystallization of Breath Ⅱ

“Coarse and smooth, I integrate the two ways of presenting sandstone into one image, forming a consolidated and robust space. Celan once used the term ‘crystallization’ to explain the relationship between reality and abstraction, and named his collection ‘Atemkristall’. Crystallization is the process of condensing and precipitating crystals, how is art creation not like that? Our living world is a multi-faceted existence, and in viewing and presenting it, the edges and the depths, the visible and the invisible, intertwine into a familiar and unfamiliar world.”

Full Moon

“In 2019 I came to Lhasa along the Qinghai line and spent ten days in Lhasa, I walked through the streets of Lhasa and went to many temples. There were small temples on the streets and also the Chubu monastery among the clouds. The red and white color scheme of Tibetan temples left a deep impression on me, however, it is interesting to note that the one that left the deepest impression on me was the Sera Monastery in Lhasa under the moonlight night. This trip to Tibet also laid the groundwork for my subsequent creation.”

Nearly Blue

There are two classic shades of blue in the traditional Chinese mineral color: the stone blue polished by blue copper ore and the green-gold ground by lapis lazuli. Each of the two blues has its own characteristics: the stone blue is somber and the lapis lazuli is light. This work attempts to use the subtle shades of blue to show the beauty and vitality of a flower in its growth stage. Beauty is like a flower. If we were to compare this painting to beauty, it would be a woman like Lin Daiyu who sobs like a mournful maiden. If we were to compare this flower to a poem, it would be the bewildering scene an ancient Chinese poem “In moonlit pearls see tears in mermaid eyes. With sunburned mirth let blue jade vapour rise”.

New World

This set of works was created at the beginning of this year during the pandemic. Faced with the onslaught of the pandemic, I was living in fear every day, stuck at home and unable to go out, surrounded by all kinds of negative news, and full of a sense of helplessness. At this time, there was a special need for a force of struggle, resistance and advancement to break free from such depressing emotions and bondage. I thought of Chinese expressions like ‘the spirit of the dragon horse,’ ‘a thousand horses galloping,’ and ‘leading the charge.’ Thus, I created this series of works centered on horses. Using mineral color to paint over and over again. With each overlay, the previous image becomes blurred, but the grainy material always leaves vague traces. Through the layers, an unstoppable momentum emerges from the illusion, which reminds me of Sisypheus fighting in the midst of nothingness, and I get consolation from it.

Happy Remembrance

The series of Happy Remembrance uses different styles of cupcakes as painting materials, uses mineral colors from the depths of the earth crust and colored clay from the hometown to paint. The crystalline and pure particles collide and fuse with the simple and mundane micronized powder, cascading and juxtaposing, presenting a figurative image and implying an abstract form, leading to multi-directional thinking. Perhaps it is a remembrance of a festival or a tribute to a past event, the sweet cupcakes are placed quietly, touching different viewers, reaching different hearts, tasting different sweetness and placing different memories...

Waiting for You

I lived in Africa for two years, and Africa is a country full of wildness and exuberant vitality. The people there are simple and wild, which fits well with the rough and primitive force of the rock color material. In 2019, I had a newborn and the child was born with a hair swirl on the top of its head. According to the saying from my hometown, this is the reincarnation of a green cow, so I decided to paint a cow. For this work, I used the earth collected in Africa at that time, and together with the earth from my hometown, I felt that I could connect my family across time and space.

Impressions of The Silk Road

The work takes the exotic arch style as the primary structure, and presents it in the form of heterogeneous co-construction combining natural rock color and gold leaf, with the classic red and gold contrasting color as the main color. The painting pattern and burin pattern are intertwined in the picture, echoing with the arch style, conveying a sense of space-time dialogue between reality and mental image.

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Every form of art has its own unique mode of expression. As times, environments, and perceptions change, each art form must, on one hand, preserve its essential characteristics; on the other hand, it should also “keep pace with the times,” continually crossing boundaries, integrating new influences, learning from others, and exploring new forms of expression in contemporary contexts.

Mineral color painting is both ancient and modern. This painting technique uses rock powders, colored earth, sand, and other natural materials as its primary medium. Its origins can be traced back to the third century in the Kizil Grottoes of Xinjiang, China. After the Song and Yuan dynasties, Chinese painting became dominated by ink and wash, and the richly colored mineral color painting gradually declined. During the Sui and Tang periods, Japanese envoys studying in China developed a particular fondness for this technique, bringing it back to Japan, where it was continually explored and gradually evolved into the distinct form of Nihonga painting known today.

After China’s Reform and Opening, many Chinese artists went to Japan to study, developing a keen interest in the materials and techniques of mineral color painting, while gaining a deeper understanding of the long-standing connections between Japanese painting, Chinese culture, and traditional Chinese painting. Upon returning to China, these artists sought to revive and expand this traditional art form. In the 1990s, the technique was renamed mineral color painting and began to emerge prominently in contemporary Chinese art, gaining new recognition and vibrancy.

Contemporary mineral color painting approaches the medium from the perspective of material research. While drawing nourishment from its historical origins, it also pursues “creative transformation and innovative development.” Open, inclusive, and forward-looking, it freely and diversely expresses the thoughts, emotions, joys, and sorrows of people in the present day.

Miao Tong

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02 “The Space of Mineral Color” – Exhibition Opening Forum

The opening forum of APSMUSEUM’s exhibition, “The Space of Mineral Color,” was held on the afternoon of March 17, 2023, at Belle Palace Cinema, 10F, L+Mall, Lujiazui, Shanghai. The forum was hosted by the exhibition curator, Mr. Miao Tong, and featured eight distinguished guests: the renowned Japanese painter and former professor at Kyoto City University of Arts, Mr. Hitoshi Asano; Mr. Zhang Lixing, Vice Chairman of the Shanghai Association of Literary and Art Critics; Mr. Weng Jijun, professor at Shanghai Institute of Visual Arts and Deputy Director of the Lacquer Art Committee of the Shanghai Artists Association; Mr. Ma Qiang, Director of the Art Research Institute and Research Fellow at the Dunhuang Academy; Mr. Jin Hui, professor at Shanghai University Shanghai Academy of Fine Arts and Deputy Director of the Lacquer Art Committee at the China Academy of Art; Mr. Zhai Jianqun, specially appointed associate professor at Kyoto City University of Arts; and Mr. Marukawa Naoto, mineral color artist and doctoral candidate at China Academy of Art.

During the forum, the guests discussed the cultural connections between Chinese and Japanese mineral color painting and offered profound insights into the development of contemporary mineral color art from theoretical, practical, and pedagogical perspectives.

03 The Power of the Rock | Sino-Japanese Mineral-Color Art Exchange Series Opening Ceremony

The opening ceremony of the exhibition was held at the APSMUSEUM gallery. The event attracted numerous artists, practitioners, and art enthusiasts from both China and abroad, creating a vibrant atmosphere of artistic exchange and dialogue.
Distinguished guests attending the ceremony included Mr. Sun Yu, Deputy Director of the Publicity Department of the CPC Pudong New Area Committee and Director of the Bureau of Culture, Sports and Tourism; Ms. Mai Yoneda, Director of the Public Relations and Cultural Affairs Division and Cultural Attaché of the Consulate-General of Japan in Shanghai; Ms. Yang Yan, Deputy Director of the Arts Division of the Shanghai International Culture Association; Mr. Gao Suogui, Director of the Cultural Development Division of the Publicity Department of the CPC Pudong New Area Committee; Mr. Hitoshi Asano, Member of the Japan Soga-kai, Professor Emeritus at Kyoto City University of Arts, and Executive Committee Member of the Japan–China Cultural Exchange Association; Mr. Yang Jianping, Vice Chairman of the Shanghai Artists Association and Council Member of the China Artists Association; Mr. Jiang Tieli, Vice Chairman of the Shanghai Artists Association and Deputy Dean of the College of Fine Arts, Shanghai University; Mr. Song Guoshuan, Deputy Party Secretary of the College of Fine Arts, Shanghai University; Mr. Jia Wei, Deputy General Manager of Shanghai Lujiazui Finance & Trade Zone Development Co., Ltd. and Chairman of Lujiazui Commercial Management Co., Ltd.; Mr. Miao Tong, Associate Professor at the College of Fine Arts, Shanghai University, Member of the Shanghai Artists Association, and Curator of the exhibition; and Ms. Wang Bin, Founder of Art Pioneer Studio and Director of APSMUSEUM.
At the opening ceremony, Mr. Sun Yu, Ms. Mai Yoneda, Mr. Hitoshi Asano, Mr. Jia Wei, and Mr. Miao Tong delivered speeches to mark the launch of The Power of the Rock | Sino-Japanese Mineral-Color Art Exchange Series.