Ye Yongqing says he doesn't think of himself as a professional artist. 'Art is not a profession,' says the Kunming-born, Beijing-based painter. When art becomes settled and fixed, he says, it stops being art. In tune with that, his works range from Gauguin-like idylls in his early years, to almost violent, politically charged art, to the rarefied, spiritual simplicity of his most recent series of bird drawings.
As Free as a Bird, a retrospective organised by Anna Ning Fine Art at the Hong Kong Arts Centre, will show a selection of Ye's art, focusing on his more recent works.
Active since the late 1970s, Ye is among the foremost practitioners of Chinese contemporary art. From the idealistic 80s, when everything seemed possible, through the tough disillusionment of the years following the Tiananmen crackdown in 1989 and beyond, his work is both highly individualistic and exemplary of his generation.
Like the migrating birds in his drawings, Ye does not like settling in any one place for too long. Instead, he enjoys flitting back and forth between different identities.
'My life is rather fragmented,' he says. 'Sometimes I'm a curator. At other times, I go back to the studio, then I'm an artist. Sometimes I'm a boss, running a business.'
Ye, who turns 50 this year, used to operate partly commercial art spaces in Chengdu and Kunming comprising galleries, restaurants, cafes and shops. 'At other times I slip into the role of a teacher in my old art school in Chongqing. And when I sit here drinking coffee with you, I'm just someone drinking coffee with you.'