Qiu Ruixiang, A Purest Artist

Qiu Ruixiang, born in a small county of Shaanxi Province in 1980. He is the purest young artist I've ever met. He is shy and conservative. Although near his 30, he has been staying at Xi'an, the city where he went to college for most of his time. He cannot even speak a standard Mandarin (putonghua), but keeps his dialect in that small county. He enjoys life there with some of his artist and poet friends, quiet and slow-pace.

Qiu Ruixiang worships the Chinese mural a lot especially those of Dunhuang Caves in the west Gansu Province. He specializes in painting a figure alone or with some props in simple dark background, expressing a sense of serenity and solemnity. The figures are all highly idealized images, shaped as if it is a sculpure, with a lot of details left out.

He pursuits for sort of depth and permanence by employing the simple lines and colours which he thinks already existed in the world when he was born.

He paints a lot of figues just standing on the ground. And he says it is the relationship between feet and the ground, the relationship between man and the land that attracts him.

Due to my innocence, I cannot tell the genre that can get him included or who might have some influence on his works. But his works were displayed in some group shows themed animation, such as Animamix Hyper-Link at Moon River MOCA, curated by Victoria Lu, and will be shown also in 100 Tales in Animamix at Linda Gallery from Beijing to Indonesia and Singapore. Personally, I think there should be better subject that can fully cover Qiu Ruixiang's unique and fantastic works.

Most of Qiu Ruixiang's works are painted on paper, and only few on small size canvas. That is unusual for young aritist today. What makes us feel even heart-broken is that most of his previous works were ruined by leaking rain in bad storage in his rental house. He tells the reason with a shy but sincere smile. Without any official contract with agent galleries for support, he cannot afford the cost even for buying canvas. When we see a canvas painting of his, actually there are layers beneath. Each time he finishes one painting but in the lack of canvas, he will cover it and repaint a new one on the same canvas.

Just as he said, "That's because there's nothing you can do, you just love it."