Jun.24,2015
Abstract: On a foggy morning of mild winter, the sun rises slowly; the golden light gradually shines the village on Gulangyu Island; Old house of Southern Fujian style are waking up slowly… I can’t help like Xu Qiang’s work Mild Winter On Gulangyu Island on the first sight.
Zhang Xiong Art correspondence (Article/ Hu ying) On a foggy morning of mild winter, the sun rises slowly; the golden light gradually shines the village on Gulangyu Island; Old house of Southern Fujian style are waking up slowly… I can’t help like Xu Qiang’s work Mild Winter On Gulangyu Island on the first sight, because if it is full of cultural flavor of old houses in Southern Fujian and can not keep out the pulse of spirit and the flouring of life. Large and small, high and low Fujian-style buildings are arranged densely, standing there, leaping there, enjoying the warmth brought by the sun. Although the leaves have fallen, the
branches are still extending. Each clean stroke corresponds with the fresh air
in the morning. On the basis of
sketching, the artist enhances the abstract composition and depicts the shape
changes of point, line and surface vividly. A profound poetic conception is
created by randomly dropping several dry or wet lines into the splendid old
building complex which are painted with large clumps of red color.
Mild Winter On
Gulangyu Island
Xu Qiang studied with Professor Zhang
Liping and Professor Mo Ye. He is an assistant professor of Department of Fine
Arts of Xiamen University and Assistant Secretary-General of Oil Painting
Committee of Fujian Artists Association. As an old saying goes, an accomplished
teacher has skilled students. Mr. Zhang Liping influences him much more. Mr.
Zhang is a professor and Deputy Dean of College of Art of Xiamen University. He
studied with the oil painting master Tuo Musi. Xu Qiang’s oil painting has
inherited the liberation understanding of color spirit from Mr. Zhang Liping
and Mr. Tuo Musi. Mr. Tuo has been devoted to the aesthetics of integrating the
essences of color techniques of Oriental and Western painting, especially
spiritual liberation of colors, i.e. originating from the nature yet surpassing
the nature. As the third-generation oil painter of “Inner Mongolian School” ,
we can catch a glimpse of the strong emotions generated from the interweaving
of colors and light of strong contrast, strong brightness and high purity in
his paintings; from the wildly free, strong, light, leisurely or restrained
emotions, we can also feel his different conception extensions and sublimations
through colors and free brushwork in his oil painting.
Xu Qiang’ work
In a monologue of Xu Qiang which is as
plain as water but touches every one, he said, “I feel I am always walking, in
the nature and on the journey of life. I am moved by the magnificence and
quietness of the great nature, by the changes of life in the big society. I try
to tell these moving emotions and understandings from my real heart through
painting. I believe an artist should place reality in the first. It’s the
destination and light house of our painting journey. Observation should be
real; feeling should be real; representation should also be real. Thus, we can ensure
we are in the correct path.” Xu Qiang often reminds himself to feel the real external
objective and inner self with a
sensitive, empty and pure heart and to represent it really in the
painting.
Eggplant
Blossoms by Xu Qiang
All he expresses in his paintings is his
sincere love for life and nature. In his oil painting Eggplant Blossoms, the exuberant
and romantic purple with a little restrained shyness hides among the green
vines. With the strong contrast of the purple eggplants and the green leaves,
plus pink, rosy, blue an yellow blossoms and grasses, the whole painting
appears really splendid. The purple representations of eggplants are just like
flames burning in the artist’ s heart. We can feel their strong vitality.
Xu Qiang’s paintings do not dwell on the
forms but created out of heart. In his Houses Among Bamboo Grove, we can feel a
flavor of vitality of green life from the upright flourishing bamboos with the comely
and ethereal quality of Chinese literati. Xu Qiang always expresses his
feelings of the nature with outstanding free strokes or color clumps of different
grades.
A Rest In The
Rain by Xu Qiang
Xu Qiang’s painting style is primarily
abstract and free. His oil paintings are colorful. The colors in his painting
are bright yet not vulgar. His application of colors is steady and skillful,
quite harmonious in the arrangement of thick and light, dense and sparse. Thus,
his painting feels natural, refreshing, bright, elegant, profound and vigorous.
His abstract and free style is formed on the basis of his solid oil painting skills
and realistic painting practices. The sublimated soul of the artist after deep
study of nature and local culture is expressed through free brushwork while the
pleasure of natural understanding of intentions is attributed to his abstract
depiction.
Xu Qiang is an artist of excellent
characters, not blundering. He represents the vividness of the nature with his
pure and abundant heart. He piously and humbly believes he still has insufficiencies
as well as something he persists after more than 20 years of exploration and he
will keep studying. The original flavors of banana trees, bean flowers,
jackfruit, etc. that have touched the innermost of the artist and the audience
take us back to the nature and bring us a spiritual habitat. What’s commendable
is as a Chinese oil painter, he can naturally represent Chinese flavor in the
canvas.