Echoes of Nature
Works by Contemporary Chinese Artists
Curated by Dr. Aihua Z. Pearce
June 4 – July 30, 2022
A highly trained classical figurative draftswoman and art historian, Dr. Aihua is from Beijing, China. She pursued a professional education at the China Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing, then immigrated to the United States and studied art at California Lutheran University. She received her MFA from the Academy of Art University, San Francisco, where her major was classical figurative sculpture. She then obtained a Ph.D. in Art History and Visual Culture at the University of Exeter, England.
Dr. Aihua is an Artist Member of the California Art Club. She teaches drawing at California Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks. She and her husband Dr. Michael Pearce live in Thousand Oaks, California.
Christine Leong, a native of Hong Kong, has a passion for Chinese watercolors. Her painting style demonstrates soft, lyrical brush strokes, her specialty is in Kois and florals. Ms. Leong’s artworks reflect unique and original Chinese Watercolor images that combine Asian and Western painting techniques.
Since immigrating to Camarillo area in 2002, her paintings have been juried in shows and art walks in California. She has won many awards, including 1st place at 2004, 2008 & 2010 Ventura County Fair Professional Watercolor Division and Award of Excellence at 2007 California State Fair in Sacramento. She has exhibited extensively around the world. In 2008 Christine was invited to display her artwork ‘Nine Kois’ at Beijing Art Museum, China. The art exhibition, Salute Beijing Olympics ad Display Chinese Civilization, is a featured event of 2008 Olympic Culture Festival which assembled 100 emerging Chinese artists worldwide to showcase the Chinese culture and visual arts.
Christine is an Artist in Residence at Studio Channel Islands Art Center. She teaches and does art demonstrations in various art centers.
I began to study Chinese brush painting and calligraphy at a very young age in Tianjin, China. At the age of 16, I was named the winner of the prestigious title, “Young Artist of Tianjin” by the Cultural Committee of Tianjin City. In 1992, I was admitted to the Oriental Art Department of Nan Kai University and majored in Chinese brush painting. Among many teachers, I was most influenced by the renowned contemporary Chinese painter, Fan Zeng, especially by his use of simple and vigorous brush strokes emphasizing dynamic delineation form. In 1996, I continued my graduate study in Art Education at Capital Normal University in Beijing. In 1999, I came to the United Stated and studied Art Education at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock in pursuit of my Master of Arts degree.
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My artworks have been exhibited across the United States among public institutes, museums, and galleries. Many of my paintings and drawings have been collected by private patrons. From 2007-2022, I have held 11 solo art exhibitions, and participated in 108 regional, national, and international invitational or juried art exhibitions. In those exhibitions I have won 18 awards.
I have taught art classes for all age-level groups and has worked with young students from kindergarten to high school, college students, and senior citizens over 20 years. I currently resides in Tallahassee, Florida, with my wife, Haiqiong Deng, our son, Ethan, and daughter, Isabel. I am currently the professor of art teaching drawing, painting and art education classes at Department of Visual Arts, Humanities & Theatre, Florida A&M University.
Born in Southern China, Mian Situ received his formal art training in his native homeland of Guangdong, formerly Canton. He graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Guangzhou Institute of Fine Art, and a few years later earned a Masters in Fine Art. Mian’s paintings clearly reflect his upbringing in the rural countryside of his native China. His deep-toned impressionistic paintings of the backcountry often focus on people going about their daily lives in their small villages and farming communities. Mian’s artistic versatility is also evident in his exquisite portraiture, as well as his more recent works inspired by western historical themes and American landscapes. Since 1995, he has been recognized with many national art awards. During the 2003 Masters of the American West show at the Gene Autry Museum, he was honored with three major awards: the Thomas Moran Memorial Award (in recognition of exceptional artistic merit), Artists’ Choice Award and Patrons’ Choice Award. He has also won the Award for Excellence for Master Signature Members for his painting, “Helpful Hand”.
Victor Wang grew up in Northern China and graduated BFA from The Lu Xun Academy of Fine Arts, one of three top art institutes in China. After graduation he taught there for four and a half years and was sent to The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign as a visiting scholar.
He earned his MFA in Fontbonne University. He currently lives in St. Louis, where he teaches painting, drawing and graduate critique classes as a full professor at Fontbonne University. He has exhibited widely across the country and internationally and has won various awards for excellence, including awards for both painting and art instruction.
Victor Wang has been shown nationally and internationally. The figures in his paintings serve as vehicles to convey the human experience, representing the emotional tension and psychological drama of life’s turning points. The images portrayed in his art are provoked by the childhood memories and past experiences that represent the memories of his life.
W. Jason Situ was born in 1949 in Guang Dong, China. He began painting in high school during China’s “Cultural Revolution” and completed his art education at the Guangzhou Fine Arts Institute, one of China’s most prestigious and competitive art academies. In 1989 Mr. Situ immigrated to the United States with his family. He was fascinated by the beautiful California landscape and soon decided to become a plein air painter. He has been a full-time artist since 1997 and has shown his work across the United States. He is a prolific, dedicated painter, receiving numerous awards in prestigious juried art competitions, including many “Best of Show” and “First Place”awards. He has been featured in many publications, and strives to keep contributing his best to the beauty of the art world, painting what brings him joy as an artist.
He is a signature member of the California Art Club, and the pass signature member Laguna Beach Plein Air Painters Association, Oil Painters of America, Rocky Mountain Plein Air Painters and an honorary member of the Tucson Plein Air Painters Society.
Mr. Situ has won numerous awards for his artwork including the “Best in Show-National Award of Excellence,” Oil painters of America 10th Annual National Juried Show. “Best in Show” in La Quinta Plein Air Juried Competition 2004, in Bucks County Plein Air Festival 2016, Painting The Peninsula 2016. “Best of The Show” in “Studios on the Park Wet Paint Invitational 2016, Paso Robles.( CA)” and ” San Dimas 40th Art Exhibition 2016(CA)”; ” Irvine Museum Award for Best Landscape, at CAC 106th Annual Gold Medal Show 2017,(CA); .He has also been featured in several fine art publications including Art of the West, Southwest Art and American Artist.
The beauty of nature is all around us, waiting to be explored and appreciated. When I was a child, my dad and I would venture into the countryside together to paint in the open air. Since then, I have been playing with different media and working on various subject matters. My first love is Chinese ink painting. Its fluidity and spontaneity of expression are mesmerizing. I studied under Professor Chao Shao-an, who was a prominent artist of the Lingnan School of Painting. His sparse, but bold, brushstrokes culminate in compositions that stunningly capture the essence of nature. I am inspired by his style of blending eastern and western art.
My pursuit of art led me to Laguna Art-A-Fair and Newport Beach Art Exhibition in the 80’s. I was represented twice in the former, and gifted a cash award in the latter.
Xu Weixin was born in Urumqi, Xinjiang province, in 1958, and now lives and works in New York and Beijing. He received a BA from the Xi’an Academy of Arts and an MFA from the Zhejiang Academy of Arts. Xu has combined his interest in universal human conditions with a stark Realist style that is deeply rooted in China’s modern art history. His most recent works are single-person portrait series, whose subjects share the same historic time or environment, merging personal and collective narratives. Xu Weixin’s critically acclaimed works have been exhibited and collected by public institutions and private collections in China. Solo exhibitions include Song of Workers (Shanghai Art Museum, 2007), Chinese Historical Figures: 1966-1976（Today Art Museum, Beijing, 2007), and China Image: Portrait in Circulation (Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, Harvard University, 2011). He is currently a professor of painting and the former executive dean of the School of Arts, Renmin University, Beijing. In 2016， Xu had his first major solo exhibition in USA at the University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA).
Yu Ji, also known as Ji Hongyu had his undergraduate study in drawing and painting at Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing, China (1977-81). He came to the United States in 1983 and studied at State University of New York College at New Paltz, where he earned his MFA degrees in painting/drawing (1986) and in printmaking (1989). As a scholarship recipient, he participated in the La Napoule Art Foundation’s figurative painting workshops in France (1985) and at University of New Hampshire (1986). He was also awarded the Charles H. Revson fellowship for his post-graduate study at New York Studio School (1986-87).
As a studio painter, Yu Ji concentrates on a figurative approach to painted form and experiments with pictorial compositions exploring images of contemporary urban life. In his early years of art study, Yu Ji was fortunate to study privately with some of China’s most respected painters while surviving Mao’s Cultural Revolution (1966-76) as a sent-down youth laboring in a remote mountain village. After the Cultural Revolution, he received an opportunity to study drawing and painting at the Central Academy of Fine Arts, which prepared him with a solid foundation and led him to his first teaching position at the Academy in its pre-college program. By pursuing his education in American graduate school, he was influenced by both contemporary American figurative painters and several New York formalist artists whose teaching challenged him to deepen his understanding of pictorial expression and establish an open perspective for professional studio practice.
Yu Ji’s artwork has been recognized for its elaborate compositions based on observational sketchbook studies and for pictorial interpretations of figurative form in space. During the past years, his drawings and paintings have been exhibited in Beijing, New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Kansas City and Los Angeles. In support of his studio research, he has received grants from the Utah Arts Council, Illinois Arts Council and Marie Walsh Sharpe Art Foundation for his urban studies, as well as research grants from Eastern Illinois University and California State University, Long Beach. In addition to gallery exhibitions, his portrait of Sir James Mirrlees has joined the permanent collection at Scottish National Portrait Gallery in Edinburgh, Scotland.
Having been involved in studio teaching, Yu Ji’s university tenure includes teaching positions at the Senior High School of Central Academy of Fine Art in Beijing (1981-83), Southern Utah University (1989-94) and Eastern Illinois University (1994-99). Currently he is teaching life drawing and painting at California State University, Long Beach (1999-Present). In addition to an active participation in visiting artist programs to many art schools across the country, he has traveled to China during recent years as a visiting artist to a series of fine art institutes that includes Guangzhou, Tianjin, Hubei Academies of Fine Arts, Hebei Normal University, Northeast Normal University, and Beijing Collage of Clothing and Fashion Design. He has also helped establish an exchange program between California State University in Long Beach and China’s fine art academies in Guangzhou and Tianjin.
Z. S. Liang was born in China in 1953 and raised in a family of artists. He studied at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing, and later furthered his art studies in the United States. He earned his BFA in painting at Massachusetts College of Arts in 1986 and his MFA in painting at Boston University in 1989.
Liang received his first great inspiration in this country while studying and painting the Wampanoag Indian culture at the Outdoor Museum in Plymouth, Massachusetts. This newfound interest fired his imagination, and he began to focus his painting primarily on Native American cultures and their traditional way of life. During the ensuing years of field research, he has made many connections and friends among Native tribes from the East Coast to the Rocky Mountains. Liang’s obvious passion for the Indians as a people, coupled with his emphasis on historical accuracy, adds strength and truth to his portrayals.
Among the many awards Liang has received are 2018 Sam Houston Award for Painting at Night of Artists, the 2011 Masters of the American West Purchase Award and the 2009 David P. Usher Patron’ Choice Award at the Autry’s Masters of the American West; and the 2005 President’s Award for Excellence, Oil Painters of America; Best of Show Award and People’s Choice Award, the American Society of Portrait Artists, 1998.
Liang’s works are in the permanent collections of the American National Portrait Gallery, Autry Museum, Briscoe Western Art Museum, Harvard University, and the West Point Museum of the United States Military Academy.
Z. S. Liang is represented by Legacy Gallery, Scottsdale, Arizona. Giclee reproductions of his work are available through Greenwich Workshop dealers.