Qi Baishi Was born in 1863 to a peasant farmer in the Hunan province. He was too weak to help his family out on his farm so instead, he became a carpenter mastering the fine skills of the job. After his marriage, he decided to become a full-time painter and studied portraits with the famous Xiao Xianghai. Baishi believed that art should be made from things people have all seen before so he decided to make art that all people could enjoy because they have experienced the subject of his painting before. Known mostly for his traditional style of Chinese art using mostly watercolors to depict his subjects. Through his style in painting for the masses Baishi was able to stay true to his values in his art during the very tumultuous late 1800s and early 1900s in China. Using traditional Chinese painting techniques allowed him to remain popular no matter the time period because artists like himself maintained China’s history through extremely tough times.

Chao, Wang. “Qi Baishi.” New World Encyclopedia, https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Qi_Baishi#Life. Accessed 9 April 2023.

凝固的风景 SOLIDIFIED SCENERY, 2009

Chen Qiulin is a master in a range of art mediums including: video, performance, photography and installation. Chen graduated from Sichuan Fine Arts Institute in 2000 with a focus in printmaking. She has had exhibitions across eastern China and in Europe and America. She was born in Sichuan, China in 1975.  Her works (especially the one posted) addresses the rapid urbanization of her home. While a lot of our class showcases the history, Chen addresses the tragedy’s happening in Sichuan like demolitions of cities for new modern projects and the erasure of Chinas past. During the Sichuan earth quake in 2008, Chen Qiulin was apart of the rescue teams and would collect material for her sculptures. She is very passionate about using the space, materials and themes of Sichuan. In China, she works with A Thousand Plateaus Art Space. This is where a majority of her new pieces and information about her can be found. Due to the era of the period we are learning about now (1940s-1970s) her parents had to work very hard which left her at home, alone, a lot of the time. Her hair was shaved until grade two because her mother believed it was “too much of a hassle”.

Bibliography:

Merlin, Monica. “CHEN QIULIN 陈秋林.” tate.org, 25 Nov. 2013,  www.tate.org.uk/research/research-centres/tate-research-centre-asia/women-artists-contemporary-china/chen-qiulin.

Pepper, France. “Hammer Projects: Chen Qiulin.” Hammer.UCLA.edu, HAMMER MUSEUM, https://hammer.ucla.edu/exhibitions/2009/hammer-projects-chen-qiulin, Accessed 6 Apr. 2023.

Picture sited:

Chen, Qiulin. 艺术微喷. www.1000plateaus.org, www.1000plateaus.org/artists/30-chen-qiulin/works/1564-chen-qiulin-solidified-scenery-2009/.

Feng Mengbo, Street Fighter IV, 1996. Oil on canvas

Feng Mengbo was born in Beijing, China 1966. He graduated from the Central Academy of Fine Arts, printmaking department in 1992. His artwork career began one year after graduation. Feng grew up during three historical movements in Chinese history: the People’s Republic of China was established, the 1989 Tiananmen Square incident, and China’s involvement by opening themselves up to the global economy. At a first glance Feng’s work seemed to be nothing more than what looked like to be a painting of a screen shot; but actually was a painting of an extremely popular video game series known as Street Fighter. Feng is a media artist, who was featured in Metamorphosis of the Virtual 5 + 5, 5 French Artists and 5 Chinese artists; Feng being one of them. Feng’s artwork was very influential because he took iconic video games and put himself and his own characters into it. He created his own virtual reality with each piece of art he made. 

Works Cited

Eisman, April A. “eisman_playing With the Political.pdf.” 

Gaskin, Sam. “Feng Mengbo Biography, Artworks & Exhibitions.” Ocula the Best in Contemporary Art Icon., 20 July 2014, https://ocula.com/artists/feng-mengbo/.

-Pan Yuliang, Self-Portrait, 1945

Pan Yuliang was born in China on June 14, 1895, and died in France on July 22, 1977. The Qing dynasty was overthrown during her teenage years, bringing in a new era, the Republic of China. This caused China to be in political disarray allowing for change throughout the country, including art. Pan was involved in the May Fourth Movement, and the goal was to get rid of the old Confucian values and bring in new modern ways from the West. As part of this movement, she adopted the modernist style often infusing it with impressionism with a bright color palette. She was most known for being the first Chinese woman to explore nude paintings of women and her representation of feminism. Nudity was seen as a symbol of freedom in the West. However, due to it being a taboo subject in China, painting the nude was seen as a perversion and a betrayal of art. Along with this being a tough subject, Pan being a woman, her background as a prostitute, and being a concubine did not make her life in the art world easy. Although she won many awards throughout her lifetime, she was never seen as equal to her male counterparts.

Bibliography:

Teo, Phyllis, et al. Rewriting Modernism: Three Women Artists in Twentieth-          Century China: Pan Yuliang, Nie Ou and Yin Xiuzhen. Leiden University                    Press, 2016.