Interrogating Painting and the Freedom of Becoming

Ma Kelu: From Bada to Ada

All begins in doubt and returns to clarity.

In the mid-to-late 1990s, while living in New York and facing the identity questions brought on by a cross-cultural context, Ma Kelu chose to dive back into the deep roots of Chinese painting—not by reverting to traditional styles, but by transforming the solitude of Bada Shanren, the vastness of Dong Yuan, and the openness of Huang Gongwang into vehicles for a renewed pictorial language. Experiments from this period, represented by the Bada Series and Lotus Scroll, were less a homage to the classical than a lucid self-inquiry, enacted through the remixing of oil paint, charcoal, saponified wax, and other mixed media. Painting here becomes an act of translation: turning cultural longing into visible form.

Yet the artist soon realized that what sustains painting’s continuous growth is not a single phase of ideas or themes, but the internal logic of the picture itself—the appropriateness of materials, the control of visual elements, the condensation of its overall atmosphere. This consciousness of painting’s intrinsic “quality” marked his transition from cultural translation to a phase of linguistic self-determination. The seriousness of painting lies in its need to construct a coherent visual grammar.

It is this awareness, grounded in a solid pictorial language, that endowed Ma Kelu with the courage to break from his own established formulas. The Ada series, initiated in 2016 and continuing today, is a radical “clearing out” and “restart.” He deliberately stripped away the narrative, meaning, and even the fascination with “perfection” and “technique” long attached to painting, instead embracing the principles of “accident, meaninglessness, unintentioned East-or-West, natural emergence.” The image is no longer the diagram of an intention, but the direct trace of an action— a visual phenomenon approaching the natural accretion of geological strata or the organic spread of a living organism.

Interestingly, the more the artist pushes toward the “accidental” and “unintentional,” the more distinctly his deeply rooted sense of writing surfaces. This is not an appropriation of calligraphic forms, but a natural outflow of temporality, breath, and bodily presence. Each work in the Ada series is like a singular event of writing, producing varied expressions through a shared methodology. They connect to his lithographic experiments of the 1980s, to the brush-intent of abstract ink, and even to earlier spiritual threads—yet they belong wholly to this new, contemporary stage.

What this exhibition presents is precisely such a trajectory: a clear passage from “interrogation” to “freely becoming.” It is not a simple linear review, but a living site of thought and practice spanning more than three decades, centered on the fundamental question, “What allows painting to become painting?” Ma Kelu’s work has always maintained a rare duality: on one hand, the constant dismantling and rebuilding of his own pictorial system; on the other, a steadfast exploration and expansion of painting’s vitality within the contemporary context.

Ultimately, what we encounter in front of his works is not an answer, but painting itself—alive, autonomous, and full of possibility. It is a relaxation after deep contemplation, a playfulness following strict discipline, and a contemporary testament to the enduring allure of the art of painting.

Preface.

2025 Winter.

Song Tao