Cao Zhen

caozhen0806@126.com

THIRTY-ONE artists from Beijing Fine Art Academy are exhibiting their works at “The Naissance of a Painting” exhibition at the He Xiangning Art Museum.

The works are mainly oil paintings and Chinese ink and watercolor paintings. Each painting is presented with its creator’s profile, manuscripts, sketches and a few quotes to give visitors a glimpse into the painter’s understanding of art creation.

Xu Gang, Bai Yuping and Fang Zhenghe, who paint landscape and birds and flowers, stress the importance of painting from life because this routine practice enables painters to get closer to the objects and create more vivid works. Mo Xiaosong, Mai Hongjun and Li Fenglong, who paint traditional Chinese paintings with a modern twist, believe that focusing on painting techniques is not enough and artists should delve into history, culture and aesthetics. Zheng Yafeng, Xu Weiguo, Zhuang Zhong and Liu Xu, who paint large-scale landscape paintings, note that artists should express the soul of their works.

Contemporary ink painter Peng Wei, who is internationally sought-after, gives a fresh explanation on “tradition.” She claims that “tradition” is actually “a personal experience, including one’s life experience, past educations and experiences in visuals” or “any old things that influence us.”

At the exhibition, Peng showcases a 2015 ink painting attached with her handwritten Chinese translated text of a 19th-century foreign letter. She copied translated Western letters beside her paintings, which seemingly have no relation, in her series “Remote Letters,” a combination of the East and the West, picturing a modern story under the cover of traditional Chinese ink painting.

Other painters of the exhibition admit that painting calms them down, relieving them from frustrations and anxiety from life itself; and painting gives them new thoughts and helps them spot unfamiliar things in nature and everything in the world.

Lots of 20th-century masters, such as Qi Baishi, Ye Gongzhuo, Wu Jingting, Qin Zhongwen and Wang Shensheng, had worked in the Beijing Fine Art Academy which was established in 1957. They made great contribution to the prosperity and development of Chinese painting. In recent years, young talented painters with distinctive styles from around the country have been recruited into the academy.

Dates: Until June 15

Hours: 9:30 a.m.-5 p.m.

Booking: WeChat account “hxnartmuseum”

Venue: He Xiangning Art Museum, Nanshan District (南山区何香凝美术馆)

Metro: Line 1 to OCT Station (华侨城站), Exit C