” ‘The tree wants to rest. But the wind never stops’. … reflects my feelings about life as an unstoppable movement of time.“ – Ma Hui

On August 31st <Ma Hui – Challenging Limits> opens at SinArts Gallery in The Hague. The result of a yearlong conversation between the artist and curator Dan Dickhof has resulted in a carefully selected overview of etchings and paintings created by Ma Hui over the past two years.

The works on show comprise highlights from a number of series Ma Hui has been working on. On view is one of the last large pieces from her Pu’er series, where she replaces the water in her washing technique with red pu’er tea to create mesmerising brown-tints in her ink paintings. Also for the first time we can show two works from her newest Organic series, in which Ma Hui explores her relationship to organic cells, their destructive power but also the possibilities of regeneration and the creation new systems.

The highlight of this show is without doubt the installation Endless Lines, in which we exhibit more than 50meters of dry needle etching. A meditative practice to reflect on the human condition, on the journey of life of which we do not know the ending.

Ma Hui’s works have been collected by prestigious public collections such as: Dutch Embassy in Beijing (CN), SVB (Sociale Verzekering Bank), SER (Sociale Economische Raad), Leiden University Asian Library (all NL), Tolman Collection (Tokyo, Singapore, New York), Duolun Museum Shanghai (Shanghai, CN), Time ArtMuseum (Beijing, CN), Blue Roof Museum,(Chengdu, CN), CAFA Museum (Beijing, CN).

About the Artist:

Chinese/Dutch artist Ma Hui was born in Chengde, Hebei Province in 1958. Her extensive range of artworks embodies her two very different cultural identities. Her feelings about shuimo, Chinese ink and water on paper, stem from her days of early childhood on the banks of the Yellow River in Ningxia.

Ma Hui’s oeuvre is considered to belong to the forefront of abstract shuimo, as part of a new leap forward in Chinese contemporary culture. In 2006, she was awarded the prestigious Aemstelle Prize by the Cobra Museum in The Netherlands, for a wall-sized installation of ink on canvas, entitled ‘Yellow River’.