I want to introduce to my readers a great Chinese painter I have discovered recently, and whose paintings I very much admire. The painter is Han Yuchen, a man celebrated in his own country as a grand master, and recognized internationally for his multidimensional work, which includes poetry, photography, Chinese calligraphy, and European-heritage oil painting.
Yuchen was born in 1954 in the Chinese province of Jilin, and showed early signs of a great talent, so that, while still a teenager, he was able to apprentice near some of the best artists of the time and take art classes in engraving (under Li Hua) and oil painting under Su and Liang Yulong. But he was forced to end his art studies when, during Mao Tse Tung’s Cultural Revolution (1966 to 1976), his family was forced to move to the countryside and, apparently because of the family’s politics, he was unable to pass the “political examination” that would allow him to pursue formal art studies, until 1978, when he already was 24 years old. That year, Yuchen was accepted into the workshop of a famous artist by the name of Zhang Wenxin, and under him he evolved into a scholar of traditional Chinese painting and calligraphy. Established as a well-recognized painter at home, he became active in the art world of China and received many recognitions and awards for his art. Since 1982 he has exhibited frequently all over China.
In 2006 he realized a dream to visit and paint Tibet, and that trip became an annual pilgrimage, during which Yuchen photographed and painted a large number of oil canvases depicting the faces, the landscapes, and the everyday life of Tibet’s people. His portraits of goat shepherds and monks, pilgrims with red faces and big smiles, vast landscapes, and depictions of flocks of sheep and goats, are reflective of the unique character of Tibet’s people, and the singular views of its mountain landscapes. But in them, Yuchen has not only depicted the culture and the landscapes of Tibet but has also given the viewer insights into the deep religiosity of his subjects, their love of the open spaces where they live, the dedication to their faith, but also the suffering under a regime they did not invite and with which they are in constant emotional conflict. These paintings offer an unparalleled glimpse into the physical and human Tibet, and their appeal, both inside China and in the many venues where they have been exhibited in Europe, is unfading.
As the Tibet series of paintings were exhibited in China and in Europe, they have earned Han Yuchen several major domestic and international recognitions and awards. He made his first European appearance in 2012 at the “Sixth Chinese and European Chinese Calligraphic and Painting Exhibition” in Spain’s Madrid. That was followed by a major show of his paintings, calligraphy, and photographs in 2013 in Brussels and at the Musee des Arts Decoratifs in Paris, and more major exhibitions in Paris (Paris Salon d’ Automne 2014), Monaco (Point Art Monaco Salon 2015), London (2017, 2018), Rome and Koln (2018), and Florence and Genoa (2019). He received the Gold and Silver Awards of the 152nd France Fine Art Salon in 2013, and the Great Lorenzo Lifetime Achievement Award at the Florence Biennale in 2019.
This past summer (August to September 2022), the municipality of Rome organized a grand retrospective of this Chinese artist who had spent the past sixteen years painting the monks, the everyday people, and the incredible landscapes of Tibet, the “Roof of the World”. Yet, what has appealed to his European viewers is not simply the beauty and quality of the paintings depicting life in Tibet. For, in his art, Yuchen has succeeded in combining the ancient traditions of Chinese art and calligraphy that he learned from his traditional Chinese teachers with the European heritage of oil painting. Yuchen is not only a painter. He is a poet and photographer, and he employed his powerful insights and observation with these multiple talents to bring to life and present to his international audiences the culture, the colors, and the struggles of daily existence of Tibet and the Tibetans, these mountain people who have lost their country, their peaceful way of life, their identity, and their religious leaders to Chinese expansionism. In this, his art goes beyond the representational to the symbolic, and reveals what true art can accomplish: bring the viewer into the soul and the aura of the subject.
For those of my friends who might be interested in learning more about Han Yuchen, here are some useful websites to start you.
http://www.hanyuchen.com
http://en.hanyuchen.com.cn/index.php?m=content&c=index&a=lists&catid=41
https://www.florencebiennale.org/en/han-yuchen/
https://www.theartpostblog.com/en/works-han-yuchen/
https://www.mutualart.com/Exhibition/Han-Yuchen-Oil-Paintings---Collection-Ex/13C0415209620738
https://www.mandragora.it/en/prodotto/han-yuchen-il-regno-della-purezza/
https://www.creativeboom.com/inspiration/han-yuchens-retrospective-reveals-his-beloved-paintings-of-tibet-and-its-people/
Comments
Post a Comment