Chinese painter Cai Guo-Qiang exhibits his gunpowder drawings in Madrid
Chinese contemporary painter Cai Guo-Qiang has brought his drawings featured with the use of gunpowder to an exhibition at the Museo del Prado in Madrid, the capital of Spain.
"It's a special art, since gunpowder is a mixture of dust before the explosion and it does not reflect the color it's going to have after the explosion," the Chinese painter, who's known for his innovation in painting technique through the use of gunpowder in small quantities that lead to small explosions that paint the canvases.
Cai's exhibition at the Museo del Prado, entitled "The spirit of painting. Cai Guo-Qiang at the Prado," is the first that a contemporary artist conceives a work and creates it on-site in the Prado Museum.
Describing the painting with gunpowder as an "expectation, a little imagination and an adventure with a little risk," Cai told Xinhua that the use of gunpowder in the painting covers a lot of feelings.
"We do not know what the result will be," said the innovative painter, explaining that the unknown result differs from the painting with oil.
The Chinese contemporary artist voices the importance of creativity in art, saying we have to "give continuity to the spirit of art and we have to create, we have to innovate."
Speaking of his painting technique with gunpowder, the artist defines it as "an energy flow."
The painter also defends painting as a way of expression in a digital age, saying the expressions by paintbrushes will never be replaced by digital works.
"Hand painting still has a meaning in this world, through our hand we can express our feeling, our subjectivity, even our state of mind at the moment of creating these works, these elements will never be replaced by digital creations," Cai asserted.
The Chinese artist has created eight of the works during the exhibition.
"We can see traces of Tiziano, El Greco, Velazquez, Rubens, and Goya, these five great masters give us spirit, inheritance in the history of the art," he said.
