“The School of Continuing Education at CAFA, for me is actually a boat that helps me find what I have longed for.” [1]

In this new epoch with the national aesthetic education, the School of Continuing Education at CAFA has carried on its orientation of life-long education with a concern for art lovers. It serves society with diversified forms of art education and provides multiple teaching courses for trainees from all walks of life. While helping the trainees explore and develop artistic skills, these courses also offer encouragement in art and beauty.

From June 7 through to 15, “The Methodology of Continuing Education: Teaching Achievement Exhibition of Advanced Studies of CAFA” was held at the multifunctional hall of CAFA. This was also the fifth academic activity for the graduation of the trainees from the School of Continuing Education at CAFA. With 166 works from over 10 teaching and research studios of the School of Continuing Education, the exhibition spanned oil painting, traditional Chinese painting, water-based painting, mixed media, calligraphy, photography, jewelry design and other fields, and it also included exhibits from the “Paintings in Separated Space” which was an exhibition that featured teaching achievements in 2020 but was forced to be held online due to the pandemic.

Exhibition View of “The Methodology of Continuing Education”

Some videos on interviews with representative trainees from various studios were screened on the walls, and they shared the significance of art and their learning experience at CAFA with the audience.

Interviews with Trainees, Exhibition View of “The Methodology of Continuing Education”

Many of the trainees that were enrolled in the School of Continuing Education had various professional backgrounds and different life experiences, there were college teachers, advertising designers, interior designers, illustrators, architects and other art practitioners, and there were also corporate executives, senior editors, doctors of engineering, opera performers, mothers, ranchers and other art lovers, but they shared a simple and sincere love for art. At the Central Academy of Fine Arts, they either tried to realize their dreams in oil painting that they had in their youth, or they found inner peace between brush and ink in their 60s, or they struggled to balance the social and family roles as a mother to find the ego in art. Through the joint presentation of video interviews and works specially planned by the School of Continuing Education this year, there was an offer of a warm and vivid summary of classes.

Exhibition View of “The Methodology of Continuing Education”

Since the establishment of the School of Continuing Education at CAFA in 2004, it has accumulated 17 years of teaching experience and gradually formed a lifelong aesthetic education program within the characteristics of CAFA. For art practitioners who have gained a level of achievement, the School of Continuing Education invited renowned teachers to guide and help them achieve professional development. There are studios focusing on 13 majors, short-term training courses that last a few months, and even long-term programs of 1-3 years so that students with various skills and learning objectives can find the basis and paths suitable for their growth here.

As stated in the Preface for this exhibition, the art of learning is “just righteous motivation and sincerity,” and those “who want to be sincere should first get knowledge; as knowledge is the study of things.” In the process of “l(fā)earning” the essence of artistic skills, the majority of trainees are constantly grinding their minds and gaining new knowledge, in the hope of developing their minds and the world. The road of pursuing knowledge is often surrounded by thorns, and the energy of exploring art and life condensed by CAFA will continue to support and encourage the trainees who are about to graduate to break new ground and achieve progress.

Text by Su Chang, edited by Emily and Sue/CAFA ART INFO

Image Courtesy of the Organizer

Note:

[1] Quoted from the Video Interview with Feng Fei for “The Methodology of Continuing Education: Teaching Achievement Exhibition of Advanced Studies of CAFA”.