survey_06 — Graphic Art: Eight Chinese Artists

1. Su Xinping — 苏新平 (b. 1960, Jining (Inner Mongolia))

Graduate: Tianjin Academy of Fine Arts; Central Academy of Fine Arts, 1983; 1989

Monochrome printmaking and painting about the steppe and the city: the human as a silhouette in empty space. One of the artists who brought the «slow» hand-pulled print back to Chinese graphics.

• Lithographs and engravings of the 1990s — figures in flocks walking across the boundless steppe: print as a metaphor of silence.
• The “Snow” series — a large format in which the white field is built up in layers of paint rather than by drawing.
• Vice-president of CAFA and professor of printmaking; solo exhibitions in Beijing, Hong Kong and Europe.
• In his prints technique matters no less than subject: for Su, printing is a way of thinking more slowly than painting allows.
• He graduated from the printmaking department of CAFA in 1989 with a master's degree and stayed on to teach; from 2014 to 2022 he was vice-president of the academy. Earlier, in 1983, he completed painting studies at the Tianjin Academy of Fine Arts and taught for three years at the Inner Mongolia Normal University.

Sources: [1] · [2] · [3]

2. Tan Ping [谭平] (b. 1960, Chengde, Hebei)

Graduate: Central Academy of Fine Arts, 1984

Printmaking and abstract painting on the border between impression and gesture: the line as a trace of movement. He studied printmaking at CAFA and later in Berlin.

• Series of engravings and “print-strokes” in which the impression records time rather than an image.
• Solo projects in Berlin, Beijing and Shanghai; honorary doctorate from Kingston University.
• Vice-President of the Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA) from 2003 to 2014, later Vice-President of the Chinese Academy of Arts; he draws a line between printmaking and abstraction.
• His principle is “printing as breathing”: the rhythm of the hand reads more strongly in the impression than the subject does.
• In 1980 he entered the printmaking department at CAFA, graduated in 1984 and stayed on to teach; from 1989 to 1994 he studied at the Berlin University of the Arts on a DAAD scholarship and returned to CAFA as a teacher.

Sources: [1] · [2] · [3]

website

3. Zhou Jirong [周吉荣] (b. 1962, Guizhou)

Graduate: Central Academy of Fine Arts, 1987

Screen printing and prints about the city: dense layers of colour, architecture and crowds. He treats colour as an optical material.

• Series of screenprints about Beijing streets and new construction — the city printed in layers.
• Projects in Spain (Royal Academy of Fine Arts, 1996) — a European experience that enters his palette.
• Professor at CAFA and deputy director of the International Print Institute; winner of national awards.
• Screen printing lets him build an image as a printing process: layer by layer, until the light appears.
• He graduated from the printmaking department at CAFA in 1987; he heads the second studio of the printmaking faculty and serves as general secretary of the International Academic Printmaking Alliance (IAPA, 国际学院版画联盟).

Sources: [1]

4. Chen Qi [陈琦] (b. 1963, Nanjing)

Graduate: Nanjing Academy of Arts, 1987

Water-based woodblock printing (水印木刻) — a continuation of the Nanjing tradition. He treats water, ink and paper as materials in their own right.

• The “Water” and “Book” series — multi-layered water-based impressions in which the image “dissolves” into the paper.
• More than 30 years studying the 水印 technique: the impression is made by hand, without a press.
• Professor at the Nanjing Institute of Arts and at CAFA, and an award-winner at international printmaking biennials.
• His prints are about time absorbed into paper: every copy differs from the one before.
• In 1987 he graduated with a bachelor's degree from the Faculty of Fine Arts of the Nanjing Institute of Arts, and in 2006 he defended his doctorate there; he later served as dean of graduate studies at CAFA.

Sources: [1] · [2]

5. Yang Hongwei [杨宏伟] (graduate of the Tianjin Academy of Fine Arts, 1994; CAFA PhD under Xu Bing)

Graduate: Tianjin Academy of Fine Arts (BA); then Central Academy of Fine Arts (MA 2008, doctorate 2015), 1994

End-grain wood engraving (木口木刻). He works in a technique where the line is finer than a hair: printing as jewellery work.

• Series of end-grain engravings with many thousands of lines: the image is assembled from strokes almost indistinguishable to the eye.
• Curator and organiser of the international 木口木刻 exhibition at CAFA (2017) — a technique that returned to China through his efforts.
• Professor in the printmaking department at CAFA and doctor of art history.
• His subject is the time inside the technique: a single block can be cut over months.
• He was born in Tianjin in 1968: in 1994 he graduated from the printmaking department of the Tianjin Academy of Fine Arts and stayed on to teach, in 2008 he took a master's degree at CAFA and in 2015 a doctorate there, under Xu Bing.

Sources: [1] · [2] · [3]

6. Kang Jianfei [康剑飞] (b. 1973, Tianjin)

Graduate: Central Academy of Fine Arts (版画系), 2000

Print as medium and as object: the block, the impression, the edition and the “life” of a work after printing.

• Projects in which the print becomes part of an installation and of an artist's book.
• Teacher at CAFA and curator of exhibition programmes about print and its boundaries (“行走中的艺术＋”).
• He works with the notion of the edition: repetition becomes the subject rather than a limitation.
• He graduated from the printmaking department at CAFA in 1997: his diploma series “Repetition and Combination” (重复组合) won the year's only first prize, after which he stayed on to teach and completed a postgraduate course there in 2000.

Sources: [1] · [2] · [3]

7. Wu Jian'an [邬建安] (b. 1980, Beijing)

Graduate: Central Academy of Fine Arts, 2005

Paper cutting and large-format printing: mythology joined to contemporary drawing. He works with scissors the way others work with paint.

• Large-format paper panels about fantastic creatures and ancient myths — the jianzhi technique enlarged to the scale of a wall.
• Series with metal and glass elements in which paper ceases to be flat.
• Professor at the CAFA School of Experimental Art; works in private and museum collections in Asia and Europe.
• His line is “folklore as a contemporary language”: the technique of a folk toy becomes a museum form.
• Born in Beijing in 1980 (his family comes from Shanghai), he is now professor and vice-dean of the CAFA School of Experimental Art; in 2017 he represented China at the 57th Venice Biennale.

Sources: [1] · [2]

website

8. Lu Zhiping [卢治平] (b. 1947, Shanghai)

Graduate: Shanghai University, Faculty of Arts, 1987

Screen printing and prints about city and sea: the Shanghai school, in which the image is built from fine layers of colour.

• Series about water, the port and the urban outskirts — a favourite material of Shanghai printmaking.
• Curator of international print exhibitions in Shanghai (“观城”, “原点的维度”) and organiser of the Shanghai Print Centre.
• First-class artist at the Shanghai Institute of Painting and Sculpture; one of the organisers of the Chinese printmaking school after the 1980s.
• His line is printmaking as a conversation between the city and the water.
• Born in Shanghai in 1947; in 1987 he graduated from the Shanghai University of Fine Arts and later founded the Bandao printmaking studio (半岛版画工作室) in Shanghai, where he teaches the technique of the impression.

Sources: [1]