Artist Xie Dongming’s solo exhibition “Xie Dongming Art Works 2004-2014” opened in Beijing on May 31, 2014, and it is his first solo show of the past two years. The exhibition features more than 20 works created by the artist in recent years. Dong Changxia, Vice President of the Central Academy of Fine Arts, Professor Shao Dazhen, Professor Zhong Han, Professor Zhan Jianjun, honorary President of China Oil Painting Society, An Yuanyuan, Deputy Director of the National Art Museum of China, Yang Feiyun, Dean of the Chinese Academy of Oil Painting Affiliated to the China National Academy of Arts, and Tang Ju, representative of the collectors of CONART were present at the exhibition.

The exhibition curator Liu Libin considers Xie Dongming as a “hermit”. Xie rarely held a solo exhibition, but we often saw his artistic genes from his students, from his first session of graduates, Liu Xiaodong and Yu Hong, to Song Kun and Wang Guangle of N12, Xie Dongming had cultivated a lot of outstanding students. Direct communication between teachers and students had always been a unique tradition of the academy, the communication between Xie Dongming and many students didn’t draw a clear line between “academic and contemporary” as the outsiders imagined, as it is more like natural “inheritance and transformation”.

Artist Yang Feiyun once reviewed the artist: “Xie Dongming stresses his writing and expression in realistic paintings, and he always stands when painting, holding large brushes before the big canvas, repeatedly waving his full-of-pigment brushes, with extensive strokes swaying towards the four sides, and the images are strong and heavy with the coverage of rapid and wild strokes. He has strong skills in plastic, by using blocks of saturated and pure brilliant color, and smearing it with fun, just like a farmer working vigorously in his field with the pickaxe. From the combination of bundles of casual strokes and the inevitable plastic to the features of subjects, to juxtaposed performance, construction and deconstruction, he gets a complicated effect in his works, with the emphasis on a strong physical expression but not rigid, distinctive stress on spirit and rhyme but not a loose feeling, he brings his free-spirited strokes into the objects of firm plastic, to highlight the spirit of resonance rather than describing the images referred to. In a word, his unique individual style is released by the combination of powerful form and connotation.”

The artist also wrote in the statement: “I run against this epoch, I would like to place the vision and brush on the remote corner of the world for a long time, to find the remains that rarely change. Someone says “It is impossible to directly see the sunlight and death”, I love sunlight and also often think about the end of life. I like to draw people in the burning sun, applying my brush and pigments to capture the sunlight and shadows floating on the faces and the surfaces of bodies. I like to paint people’s faces, especially the expressions in their eyes, borrowing the eyes of all the people to express my gaze. I would like to use my works and ways to share my feelings on life, the experiences, the explorations, and the thinking withcontemporaries. I focus on the blurry feelings that people currently have gradually forgotten, being away from us. People need to see, weneed to use art to reflect on ourselves. People always want to have the ability to grasp the world which is full of accidental disorders. I use the painting to filter the jitters brought by the noisy chaotic world, so that the heart is calm, and the life becomes clear and transparent”.

About the artist

Xie Dongming, a famous artist of oil painting, was born in Beijing in April 1956, his ancestral home is Ningxiang, Hunan Province. He graduated from the Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA) in 1984 with a bachelor’s degree, and stayed on to teach in the 3rd Studio of the Department of CAFA in the same year. Currently he is the head of the 3rd Studio of the Department of Oil Painting, CAFA, Professor, Director of the Department of Oil Painting and Vice President of the School of Plastic Arts, CAFA.

About the exhibition

Duration: May 31 –June 30, 2014

Venue: CONART, No.77 Building 6, 22 International Art Plaza, Baiziwan Road, Chao Yang District, Beijing

Host: Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA)

Text by Ye Yuanfeng, translated by Chen Peihua and edited by Sue/CAFA ART INFO; Photo by Quan Jing/CAFA ART INFO.