Feng Xiao-Dong was born in Anhui in 1963. He is also named Hsiao Feng, Tianyuan, Donglai. He is skilled in using oil painting to express Chinese scholarly painting’s wit and poetic sentiments. The flowers under his paint brushes have unique inner energy that surpasses the object as if each of the branch, flower and leave is free to stretch out and grow beyond his canvas.

His paintings focus on drawing as a sensible conduit to carry the artist’s perspectives between the object and the artist—a spiritual projection. At a basic level, his work is close to the Chinese scholarly painting tradition. It sought after the amusement through a few simple strokes. Vase, flower, zen and lotus are benevolent witnesses to life. It contains an inner elegance with uninhibited passion. The series on women and flowers combines the two subjects and borrow from each’s symbolism to express the instant of a woman’s unpredictability in varying circumstances.

Feng’s work stands close to abstract and has a musical quality though he manages to maintain the object’s form. Therefore, “mind’s appearance” is a suitable description of his work. Under his paint brushes, flowers are not flowers, lotus are not lotus. They merely represent the life consciousness and serve as its vessel. Life is expressed through the blooming flowers, grass and branches. The oil expressed the painter’s perspective on the object with willful images of western expressionism while overflowing with ideas from Chinese traditional scholarly painting. It is perhaps a difficult task to label Feng’s work as he demands one to appreciate and entrust his artistic sensibility.

1963
Born in Anhui
1993
One of participants in Hong Kong Chinese Oil Painting Exhibition
1996
Solo exhibition in Hoke Art gallery in Taipei
1998
Invited to Chinese Contemporary Artist Academic Exhibition
2000
Joint exhibition in China Academy of Art
2004
Solo exhibition in Shanghai Art Museum
2005
Selected for Salon d’Automne, Paris
2006
Solo exhibition in Wuxi Museum