Rubbing

This summer in residence, Hu Chijun will present several works from his Pine Rubbing series, alongside rubbings created on site during his stay.

The Pine Rubbing series originated as a farewell gesture to a pine tree that had accompanied the artist for more than thirty years throughout the development of Hulu, his place of living and creation in the heart of the Conghua hills. Far more than a tribute to a lost tree, the work reflects on the cycles of transformation, disappearance, and renewal that shape both the natural world and human existence.

As a witness to the transformation of a once barren landscape into a space dedicated to encounters between art and nature, the pine tree became a symbol of the intimate relationship between the artist and his environment. Its decline, caused by an infestation that affected vast pine forests across the region, is not viewed as a tragic loss but rather as part of a broader ecological process. The disappearance of certain forms of life makes way for new balances and greater biodiversity.

Through rubbings taken from the tree’s bark, Hu Chijun preserves the traces of time, insects, and natural alterations, transforming these marks into elements of beauty and memory. The work thus affirms that nothing ever truly disappears: what seems to fade away can be reinvented in other forms. Blending ecological observation, philosophical reflection, and personal experience, Pine Rubbing celebrates the capacity of living systems to regenerate and invites us to recognize, in every ending, the possibility of a new beginning.