This is the third journal text written by New York based About Art Guest Contributor Gracie Newman.

One of the wonderful things about traveling is discovering new artists. After landing in Hong Kong last week, I stumbled by chance into Alisan Fine Arts’ latest exhibition, In Pursuit of Naïveté: Fang Zhaoling’s Journey. The show features twenty-two works of Chinese ink on rice paper that span across the painter’s career. I was immediately enchanted by Zhaoling’s marriage of traditional ink painting and modernist aesthetics; every piece is distinctive, at once playful and penetrating. Many of the works depict boats or swimmers in some form, and her work, like these bodies and vessels, traverses across time and space—old and new, East and West. Calligraphic elements are also cleverly merged with the classical landscapes, literally inscribing meaning into the scenes she depicts.

Though Zhaoling was a significant twentieth-century Chinese painter, I’d never heard of her before this trip. I am delighted to have discovered an artist whose work I find so resonant and enlightening; it is a reminder that while great art facilitates intellectual and emotional exploration, physical exploration can also lead us to great art.