The first time i saw the work by Walasse Ting, was at gallery Nouvelles Images in the mid eighties and i was blown away with the large standing ladies with parrots. Extreme sized acrylic paintings on paper. with and impressive signature stamp by Ting. This was totally new for me and since, i have been following Walasse Ting. About 5 years later a publishing firm in Amsterdam ( Art Unlimited) began to publish on a very large scale the works by Ting. They were published as postcards, calendars, posters and limited editions. This meant there was no longer any exclusivity any more and the images began to loose their appeal to me. Still the craftsmanship of Ting stayed intact, but because of the sheer number of publications there was no attraction any more. Now it is 25 years later and i wished i had been following Ting a little closer , because what i have learned during this years is that there is another Walasse Ting too. An expressionist painter who has been highly important for modern art and made many collectable and beautiful paintings before his time as a “commercial” artist. Still his chineese ladies are very pleasing on the eye and a little more bold….. the ladies from the “red mouth” series are attractive pin ups treated the Walasse Ting way.
But as a whole Ting is a true modern artist who deserves to be recognized for his entire oeuvre and not only for his Ladies/parrots paintings.
www.ftn-books.com has some nice publications by Ting
