Spiritual Reconstruction: Gan Daofu’sExpanded Blue-White Porcelain

Van Gogh said, “Some painters are fearful of blank canvas, but blank canvas also fears a truly passionate painter who dares to take risks.” Gan Daofu, facing the “canvas” of clay over a long period, has made gestures of free exploration and risk-taking. In his own unique way he has imbued his blue-white porcelain works with a modern spirit.
The open area of blue-white porcelain has developed between “white patterns on blue background” and “blue patterns on white background.” To achieve harmonious relations between visual configuration and emotional expression requires organic adjustments, producing strong natural tensions in stroke-work and surface texture. The full-bodied “planar chunk” becomes an independent entity which serves as a material medium for philosophical meanings. The construction of large volumes is brought into full play in terms of strength, stroke, bearing and rhythm. Such forms  have turned a new page in the history of blue-white porcelain, extending its parameters of visual expression. Gan Daofu’s works of blue-white porcelain possess the expressiveness, bearing and visual impact of “volume writing.” They also display depth of thought, pursuing the openness of abstract thinking while maintaining general rules of traditional blue-white porcelain. The wholeness of rhythmical movement derived from ink-and-wash allow his works to convey an inherent value of spirit. For Gan Daofu, the creation of extended blue-white porcelain constitutes life of the spirit.
On the other hand, Gan Daofu has pondered the construction and planar arrangement of blue-white porcelain, and this has remained a key point in his creative work. Gan Daofu’s artistic ideal, being abstract from the descriptive narratives of traditional porcelain and the bourgeois sentiments of modern literati, is hopefully more elevated and forthright, linking to the past and to the broader universe by extension of planes. In his explorations of brushwork and spatial composition, Gan Daofu accomplishes overall kinesis across a large plane, using parts to bring out grandeur of the whole. Abstraction must respect detail and concreteness: for example, a person’s concrete sentiment, or a timely reflection. As a matter of fact, we are living quite locally today, and it is hard to grasp the whole. This is something real in the current background of society and culture, which Gan Daofu’s philosophy has touched upon and to which he has responded, in personal terms, through his blue-white porcelain. He has expanded his understanding of being as spiritual essence. The philosophical cultivation of an artist is the load-bearing frame: in abstract painting this often extends into a unified organic edifice by means of structural arrangements and multilevel variations of brushwork, all of which are endowed with chains of logical relations. Gan Daofu’s blue-white porcelain works have achieved an extraordinary resolution in this matter of relations among layout, brushwork, and color. The rational arrangement being the framework, speed and passion re-manifest the resonance of ink-and-wash in a fire-fashioned form. Gan Daofu’s spirit has found sublimation in art. His blue-white works have undoubtedly set an example in exploring modern and contemporary expression for Chinese blue-white porcelain.
Concerning this exploratory path of blue-white porcelain, Gan Daofu has perceived how surges of passion go beyond the pigmented surface. He has perceived numerous possible ways to proceed from the art medium toward spirit. Gan Daofu confidently intends to inherit and transmit blue-white porcelain; he has strong faith in the refreshing vitality latent in oriental arts, given their profound cultural accumulations and implications.
To keep watch over this great medium of blue-white porcelain, while reconstructing the nation’s spirit: this can be regarded as Gan Daofu’s expectation for the novel growth of Eastern tradition in a modern context.