Curator:Tony Chang
Artists: Wang KeJu, Li XiaoLin,Wang JiaZeng,Yang HongWei, Yang DaZhi, Zhang Ying,Chen XiaoDi
*The number 195 is the sum total of years that the participating artists have been engaged in painting.

Selected Anecdotes on Painting:  Oil Painting-Wang KeJu (1956~), Head of Painting Dept., Xu BeiHong Academy of Fine Art [45 Years of Painting]
In middle school I always dreamed of getting a book on painting. One time I borrowed the book Wu Ding's Landscape Paintings from a classmate, and it was like I'd found buried treasure. Every day and night for a week I sat and copied each of the paintings on the book. This book kept me excited for a very long time. Later, I went on to copy from publications like Anatomy for Art and the American Painting and the Body and Body Structure for Art. Even now, thinking back gets me excited. I don't know where all that energy came from!
 
Oil, Chalk & Etching-Wang JiaZeng (1963~), Associate Professor, Lu Xun Academy of Fine Art [35 Years of Painting]
My earliest brush with painting can be traced back to imitating paintings in children's books, and the Workers, Peasants and Soldiers Book of Painting in Cultural Revolution period; I did it along the road, on the walls, anywhere convenient. It was a lot of fun. This "street art" got me into the primary school art club drawing pictures for the blackboard announcements. Later on, when I became a factory worker, I took jobs as a furnace worker and as a watchman so I would have time to draw. I remember once, after I got into the Lu Xun Academy, I was at Mohe Beiji Village doing life studies paintings, and ran out of money. I ran off to the local government hotel and painted wall paintings to earn some money to eat and make my way home. I just walked and painted. It was a spiritual jaunt.

Ink-Yang DaZhi (1977~), Lecturer of Lu Xun Acedemy of Fine Art [23 Years of Painting]
In sixth grade, I drew a propaganda image about learning from Uncle Lei Feng on the blackboard. Not long after, the school was relocated, and the building was torn up. I went back to take a look one day, and my classroom had been almost totally flattened, except for the wall hanging the blackboard. Lei Feng was still there in his red bandana, saluting me.

Woodcut-Chen XiaoDi (1982~), Lecturer of Central Academy of Fine Art [18 Years of Painting]
When I was young, if I couldn't draw something well, I'd just keep drawing it until I was satisfied. I have a sketch book that's full of all kinds of pictures I drew of peaches. Back then, no matter how I tried, I just couldn't make perfect peaches like the ones in Chinese New Year's posters. So I decided to draw some, and I filled up a whole book. I wouldn't let people criticize me, either. Once my mother asked me, "what is this?" I said, "it's a peach". She said, "since when do peaches look like this?" I replied, "I only draw rotten peaches."
195 Years of Obsession:

Innovative Contemporary Paintings
It's not about what you paint, but how you paint it - a conceptual transformation in Chinese contemporary paintings.

A key element in evaluating canvas art, "painterliness", indicates the visual form, marks of crafting and personalized sentiments of a two-dimensional painting that lie beyond the subject matter. Painterliness imbues a work with the marks of humanity and life, producing the illusion of the presence of the creator. The artists in this exhibition all have zealous faith in painting, maintaining purity in their painting in a time of diversification in the mediums of artistic expression. Through their extraordinary control of painting skills, these artists have all displayed an intense desire for innovation. This exhibition's focus is on their systematic approaches and thinking methods. The divergence in their works and concepts will test all of our convictions about painting.

Wang Keju completes his paintings at the actual scene of his landscapes. The direct experience of nature inject a lively freehand nature into the internal structure of his pictures. Through the past several decades of his windy, dusty romance with the landscape, he has often had to fasten his canvas onto trees to engage in painting. Li Xiaolin's pencil drawing portraits on the Tibetan Plateau are sopping with spirit and emotion, truly representative of the passions of classical realism. Unlike those oil painters who build their works from photos or human models, the oil painted compositions of bronze engraver Wang Jiazeng place more emphasis on subjectivity. The etching textures lend a special feel to his oil color surfaces. Yang Hongwei's woodcut lines are vivid and intricate, full of the richness and expressiveness of brushstrokes. They seem to spread out like lines of diffusing ink; their painterliness seems to have a self-contained spirit of its own. Yang Dazhi, who teaches at the Lu Xun Art Academy's Chinese Painting Department, tries to break out of the classical patterns of the ink wash and the eastern cultural context. He cherishes the joy of the painting process. The unique bleeding effects of scroll paper complement the smearing, stacking and splashing of colors. The clear, translucent colors convey subjects such as bubbles, crystals and lamps, whose lighting and transparency are often difficult to grasp in the language of ink wash, thereby expanding the richness of ink wash art. He is trying to face his inner heart with the playfulness of a brush. Zhang Ying is seeking out the synthesis of the body, the sense of touch and the visual experience. Her massive horizontal depictions of the human figure spare no effort to attain purity, but nevertheless create a visually dazzling effect. The classical Chinese freehand ink wash style branches and leaves of Chen Xiaodi's works carry curled up body forms, like fruits of life¡­. The encroachment of new contemporary art forms on painting may be inevitable, but when it comes to these artists, painting, like writing by hand, has become a need in and of itself. Hence, painterliness has for them become an extension of their individual lives. Their widely divergent painting practices all glitter with the splendor of human creative power.

Painting Training and Audience Participation

The artists have been asked to produce executable painting training programs that will elucidate their conceptions of painting methodology.