On April 23, 2017, “Convenientli of Travel: Visiting Scholar Exhibition of Mountain and Water Painting by Fang Guangzhi” opened in the teaching exhibition hall, CAFA, the exhibition is jointly organized by the School of Chinese Painting, CAFA and the College of Arts, Xiamen University. Fan Di’an, President of CAFA serves as the academic director. It is the first time for the two schools to jointly organize a solo exhibition of a teacher’s work, which plays a role in strengthening CAFA’s influence on the local colleges of arts and promoting academic communications between both schools.

Fang Guangzhi, Director of the Teaching and Research Section of Chinese Painting of the College of Arts, Xiamen University, he was a visiting scholar of CAFA from 2015 to 2016, and learned from Prof. Yao Mingjing. This exhibition features more than 60 works created by Fang Guangzhi during the period when he visited CAFA and over several years, including the works collected by the National Art Museum of China and the more-than-four-meter-long landscape painting. It also displays more than ten pieces of ancient carvings from ancient buildings in Southern Fujian, which all complement each other, to jointly showcase the cultural characteristics and charm of the humanities of Southern Fujian.

Prof. Yao Mingjing, Deputy Dean of the School of Chinese Painting, CAFA presided over the opening ceremony. Fan Di’an, President of CAFA addressed the opening ceremony and said that the visiting scholar was a high-level talent exchange program hosted by CAFA for many years, this exhibition reflects on the fact that CAFA pays great importance to the research and creations by visiting scholars. The exhibition was also a new achievement of academic cooperation and exchange between the School of Chinese Painting, CAFA and the College of Arts, Xiamen University. For the art of Fang Guangzhi, Fan Di’an reviewed that he was an ideal artist of self-cultivation and temperament, adhering to the exploration of landscape painting over the years, both inheriting the traditional and exploring his own new research direction. The works focus on the combination of sketching and creation, being full of vitality, evidencing real-life situations, and he absorbs both the classical examples in the language of brush and ink and the successful experience of outstanding contemporary artists, through the lofty-style of brush and ink to express the ideas in his mind.

Xu Li, Vice Chairman of China Artists Association, Party Secretary of the China Artists Association, delivered a speech and said that the creation of landscape paintings was a field that is hard to transcend in Chinese painting, while Fang Guangzhi dared to challenge himself, depicting urban landscapes with the language of brush and ink, and the screen was full of nostalgia and filled with the feelings of his hometown. In the painting the viewer can feel the strong regional culture and the typical state of life in southern Fujian. It is necessary for a painter to have the imprint of the times, Fang Guangzhi’s creation integrates the spirit of the times and emotions in the paintings, which is a major breakthrough for the creation of an urban landscape. Wu Daguang, Vice President of Xiamen University praised CAFA that hosted a solo exhibition for the visiting scholar, and the tutor personally presided over the event, he believed that an university should build a platform for the scholars who are devoted to academic study, regardless of visiting scholars or well-known professors, it was part of the Chinese culture itself and part of the university education in China.

Fang Guangzhi’s landscape painting extends the tradition and finds a new road, constituting the evolution embodying contemporary academic consciousness. Although his landscape painting is of the spirit of traditional ink, it mainly portrays urban real life and the peaceful leisure of the residents of his hometown. His creations focus on the beautiful marine culture of the Southern Fujian and even exaggerate the main position of the residential buildings in Southern Fujian for the composition, which creates strong regional characteristics of urban landscape by Fang Guangzhi, while it also makes the cultural landscape of Southern Fujian have a position in Chinese ink painting. The combination of the red buildings and the language of ink make the painting have a sense of form in the modern painting. At the same time, the viewing angle of the scene for the screen, the shape, brush and ink, composition and the design of the whole atmosphere are meticulously processed and experience the deformation and recapitulation while avoiding a realistic intuitive record and this decoration also breaks with the old impression of ink painting and it is filled with the atmosphere of the times.

The exhibition remains on view till April 30.

Text and photo by Zhang Wenzhi, translated by Chen Peihua and edited by Sue/CAFA ART INFO