YOU CAN SEE the draughtsman's training in the accurate, measured lines of Ma Desheng's woodblock prints. It's the only training the artist ever had. In the late 1960s, during the Cultural Revolution, Ma was employed in Beijing by the government as a draughtsman in a factory, after his natural talent was recognised. Otherwise, he's entirely self-taught - often in secret.
'During the Cultural Revolution I never showed my work,' says Ma, whose father's garment factory was confiscated amid the upheaval. 'I just painted inside my home. At the time I felt resentful, but in retrospect I'm glad my education was interrupted. Had I been allowed to continue, I would have been brainwashed.'
The Paris-based artist and poet, who was born in 1952, is in Hong Kong for an exhibition of his work as part of Le French May. Faceted Symphonies: Paintings by Ma Desheng traces his career from woodblocks to ink paintings and his most recent acrylic stone series.
Confined to a wheelchair after a car accident in 1992 in the US, Ma has long, black, wavy hair with streaks of grey, and a thin, pale face that periodically breaks into a grin. He's a man who, after much struggle and sadness, appears to have found a gentle state of happiness.
Along with Huang Rui, Wang Keping, and Yan Li, Ma was a leader of the artistic group Xingxing (the Stars). His work and poetry were published in an underground publication called Jintian (Today), which was eventually banned.
Because the artists weren't allowed to display their works in galleries, they once hung them on the rails outside the China National Art Gallery in Beijing. Although their unofficial exhibition was shut down after two days, thousands of people came to see the work, which expressed their quest for artistic freedom. The unorthodox exhibition included early woodprints of Ma's such as Solidarity, in which hands and fists reach up from a cityscape.
