Passenger Of Silence

An artist defies the Cultural Revolution to learn the secrets of Chinese painting.

Was it really reasonable to drop everything overnight and go off alone into the depths of Communist China in search of the forgotten secrets of ancient Chinese art? Fabienne Verdier never stopped to ask herself: in the early 1980s, the brilliant young Beaux-Arts student was virtually possessed by the desire to learn the art of painting and calligraphy that had been devastated by the Cultural Revolution.

And when, a foreigner lost in the province of Sichuan, she found herself in an art school run by the Party, she was determined to come to terms with the situation: the language and the mistrust of the Chinese, the unbearable lack of privacy, the poverty and filth all around, disease and the inquisitorial administrative system. Blocking the West totally out of her mind, she became the pupil of great, though despised and marginalised, artists, who introduced her to the secrets and techniques of an age-old art form.

This unique experience amounted to a true adventure story, spawning a fascinating body of work that combines east Asian inspiration with contemporary art, as illustrated in her extraordinary art book L’unique trait de pinceau (Albin Michel). The present book, autobiographical travel journal, is an enlarged English edition of the original published by Albin Michel: several colour photographs have been added to the already richly illustrated volume, together with a full index and glossary.

Accompanies an exhibition at Waddington Custot, London, from 11th October to 9th November 2024.