One of the Knights of the Green Horse, Oil on canvas, 160x120cm, 2021
Green Horse Knight No.2, Oil on canvas, 160x120cm, 2021
Qiu Guangping - the three whites of the panda knight
Qiu Guangping is a temperamental macho man. In any scene, the unique temperament of his person, the unique temperament of his works, will be unforgettable. Fierce, restless, shouting, chaotic...... A top-of-the-line match for heavy tastes.
Qiu Guangping
Qiu Guangping was a later type painter. His debut was not too early, before the age of thirty he indulged in a massive copy of classic oil paintings, only familiar with his hands, only his eyes were open, suddenly his heart moved, jumped out of the classics, found himself in the contemporary trend, activated himself, and held himself.
Qiu Guangping is an idea-type talent. He always has a lot of ideas, and what is presented in his works is only a fraction.
Qiu Guangping is a master of the type, the eyes of high-rise buildings, everything he sees is gold, everything he sees is a mirror, and he can get it when he sees it.
The Man on the Mountain, 200x100cm, Oil on canvas, 2019
Qiu Guangping is a natural success. From a cutting-edge artist fifteen years ago to today's representative artist of the post-70s generation with international influence, some people think that he is good at kung fu, some people think he is lucky, some people think he is famous, some people think he sells well, and some people think that he is self-packaged well...... Actually, it's all right, and this fully reveals the richness of a great artist.
In the eyes of many people, Qiu Guangping's success was a bit excessive.
While the public was still relishing his "grinning horse" romantic expressionist hot pot and reminiscent of his "Heavenly Landscape" magical realism feast, his "Panda Knight" broth was served hot again.
Oriental Knights No. 5, Oil on canvas, 152x91cm, 2019
This time, Qiu Guangping's pen is less torn and more harmonious; Less shock, more ecstasy.
This time, Qiu Guangping made us feel hard in a different way:
The semiotic point of the giant panda is that China is precious;
The semiotics of knights point to - Western nobility;
The semiotic point of nostalgia is to the poetry of human beings;
These are the three whites that the Panda Knight dedicated to Qiu Guangping, and they are also the three whites that Qiu Guangping dedicated to art.
Come on, Chengdu, Oil on canvas, 60x90cm, 2021
The giant panda has promoted the reorganization of Qiu Guangping's new work from concept to means. The visual tension is reduced, and the poetic tension is upgraded. With his artistic eye, he discovered the giant panda, the knight, the nostalgia, and the fit, and what he gained was not only a creative impulse, but an endless creative system. He metaphysically deconstructs the giant panda and deconstructs the knight, using nostalgia as the whetstone, existence as the edge, and nothingness as the blade, metaphysically reconstructing the "panda knight", shaping it into a poetic symbol with universal stickiness, an artistic symbol, a cultural symbol, a life symbol, and a human symbol.
In order to reinforce the cultural attributes of this nostalgia, he even inserted a large number of ink elements into the acrylic paintings.
A loneliness in the heart of human beings is capitalized on the brow of art by Qiu Guangping in a personal way, giving more warm resonance to the departure and return, which is the art version of spiritual archaeology. In his portrayals that are both sympathetic and piping hot, we vaguely see the distance of an artist with a strong and fierce spirit.
Thin Ice, 60x90cm, Oil on canvas, 2019
(Text/Wang Shuai)
Excerpt from "Qiu Guangping: Art is Sharp with Temperature".
01
In 1996, Qiu Guangping took a graduation certificate from the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute and waited on the platform of Chongqing Railway Station. The stuffy tanker in front of him heading for Guangzhou sounded the announcement that it was about to depart.
If you turn back at this time, you still have time to report to the Zigong City Cultural Bureau assigned by the school. But the 21-year-old did not hesitate, with the only goal of "making money", followed the "tide of work" in the 90s, and was thrown to the city at the forefront of reform and opening up by the southbound train.
Legend of the Jungle, Oil on canvas, 200cmX300cm, 2014
The summer heat in Guangdong is no different from the mountain town where he lived, only more humid. In the chaotic climate, he realized that there was no so-called gold everywhere, and pies would not fall from the sky, and before he could wear brocade, he had to learn how to survive first.
Traveling in Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and Dongguan, he went from a Taiwanese-funded design company to a local advertising company, painting billboards and selling electronic products.
Qiu Guangping's gallery is staffed by dozens of painters whose daily task is to copy classic Western paintings in exchange for a small salary. At that time, in Shenzhen, thousands of paintings were produced every day and sold to various places. Behind these paintings, day after day, many young people are gradually grinding into a screw on the assembly line.
Landscape with Dragons 3, Oil on canvas, 150cmx300cm, 2010
His arsenic, my sweetness. For them to be able to get so close to the original works of Western masters, Qiu Guangping, as a salesman, is a little envious. With his easy-going and humorous personality, he quickly mingled with the painters. The painters learned that he was a graduate of a professional art college, and when they worked overtime to paint at night, they also invited him to stay and save the scene.
Last train, Oil on canvas, 200x500cm, 2011
Qiu Guangping has been given a precious training opportunity to make up for it – to train the intuition of observation and the sharpness of expression. He was immersed in Rembrandt's classical and soft light, and was also shaken by the majestic tension of Rubens's form; Delacroix's free and romantic feelings touched him, and Goya's eccentric absurdity also stirred his nerves from time to time.
Warm light, Oil on canvas, 80x120cm, 2020
Each painting is like opening a door to his muse's garden. However, the more he copied the paintings, the more he kept his vigilance. This self-discipline towards art is probably innate. In the composition and brushstrokes, he injected a lot of his own thoughts, and Rembrandt's "Night Watch" alone was painted eight times over and over again, each of which brought him a different understanding.
With Qiu Guangping's foreign aid, the level and quantity of the painters' works have improved significantly in a few months. Coupled with his own good eloquence, he also has good results in sales. In Hong Kong companies that emphasize personal ability, it took him less than half a year to be promoted from salesman to business supervisor.
Da Jiangdong Go, 200cmX600, Oil on canvas, 2012
He began to earn a nearly five-figure monthly salary. At that time, the per capita salary was only one or two thousand. For Qiu Guangping, who came from an authentic peasant family, such an income is enough to bring him and his family rich material security.
Faced with a smooth career, Qiu Guangping made a decision: resign and return to campus to study painting.
02
This decision was a surprise to everyone around me.
They didn't understand that the affluent life was laid out, just waiting for this young man with a beard to step on. Why did he swing a big axe and cut off the stable "money path" alive.
Bald Head and Horse, 30x40cm, Watercolor on paper, 2017
At this time, Qiu Guangping was unprecedentedly sober. During the period of copying and painting in Shenzhen, he figured out two things: first, the paintbrush in his hand can not only support himself, but also make himself live well; Second, there is something in the world that can make you devote more than making money, and that is to engage in your own art.
And this second thing, 100,000 urgent, can't wait for a moment.
I Am a Sheep, 74x148cm, watercolor on paper, 2017
100,000 urgent, can't wait. This desire to express itself, which bursts out from the depths of emotion, has become a very distinctive style in Qiu Guangping's mature works in the future:
Horses with wild hooves and grinning teeth shoulder their own missions, charging forward in different fields. Or the embattled battlefield, or the jungle where trapped beasts fight, or the reality of difficult progress. Every individual horse is swept away by the grand historical process, but it is struggling to achieve individual heroism.
The Mountain-Bearer 2, Oil on canvas, 200x100cm, 2021
In addition to the visual stunt caused by limb tension, we should pay special attention to two places: the large use of lemon yellow and the open mouth of the horse.
It is dangerous to use too much of the highly saturated color of lemon yellow in a single work. In particular, this practice is not allowed in academic teaching. It will make the work too out-of-the-box, and thus lose the beauty of harmony.
Game in the Desert, 80x150cm, oil on canvas, 2019
Crossing 80X150cm Oil on canvas 2018
Qiu Guangping is well aware of this principle, but he does the opposite. Imbalance, fragility, tension, anxiety, these intuitive physiological feelings brought by the tartrazine itself are so direct and real that people can't avoid it. There is no way to avoid it, so you have to enter into his preconceived proposition, and ask and reflect with him.
Another symbol is the open mouth of the horse. Prior to this, the images of horses in the works of art we are familiar with are mostly athletic, dynamic and graceful. Even in battle, the horse's lips are always closed, and at most they let out a helpless wail—like all submissive animals.
Oriental Knight, 80x120cm, oil on canvas, 2019
In Qiu Guangping's works, the anthropomorphic horse is no longer a passive bearer of fate, but takes on a posture of active participation. The tumbling noise makes them seem so vulnerable. But even if it will be silent in an instant, the flesh and blood that are still alive at this moment are still trying their best to make a deafening hiss—how can they not cry out because the sound is small!
Yes, it is this personified charm that is manifested in the horse. They are no longer mere spectators of the times, but because they have made a voice, they have the position they should have as independent individuals.
Waiting to Shore, Oil on canvas, 80x120cm, 2021
With a standpoint, life has thickened, and the transformation from a witness to a writer has been completed.
03
As soon as the works represented by horses were unveiled, they attracted a lot of attention. Exhibition invitations from art museums, galleries and expositions at home and abroad came one after another, and film and television star Jackie Chan invited Qiu Guangping to create a "war horse" for him; The founder of the Hurun Report is also very fond of his work.
(Please enjoy it in landscape mode)
Sighting, Oil on canvas, 242cmX1210cm, 2013
This seemingly prosperous scene is as familiar as Shenzhen in 1999. He remembered himself who had just been promoted to head of gallery business.
A strong sense of crisis rose from the bottom of Qiu Guangping's heart. He realized that his art was in danger of becoming a "product".
When an act evolves into repetition rather than creation, when a symbol can no longer stir up pure and sincere emotions in the heart, when vision itself only exists as an aesthetic and cannot carry more reflection and judgment, it is a signal that the power of art has begun to die.
Flower of Love, 80x100cm, oil on canvas, 2019
After holding solo exhibitions of "Embattled" and "Yesterday and Present Life" at the Shanghai Art Museum and Wenzhou Museum, Qiu Guangping tightened the reins and stopped his "horse".
The Power of Going Ashore 140x280cm Oil on canvas 2017
The Arsonist's Carriage, Oil on canvas, 100x200cm, 2011
For him, there was something more meaningful to do than to keep copying symbols from the source: he went to Tibet. Time and time again, we have gone deep into the lives of Tibetans to understand how they lived and how they died. See how they pray for happiness in the afterlife with their devout beliefs as spiritual food and ascetic practices in this life in the highest altitude and the harshest living conditions in China.
Burning Garden: Empty Mountain, 200x100cm, Oil on canvas, 2017
He went to Guangdong. In the scorching summer, I live with the workers, live in a shack, and eat a big pot of rice; Working, drinking, talking. It is this group of people who have built the most prosperous material paradise in China brick by brick, but in this prosperous place, they can't find even a square meter of their true belonging.
He spent three whole years portraying the AB side of "heaven".
Hollow Valley, Facing Other, Oil on canvas, 100cmX200cm, 2014
The artist's perspective allows the two places, which are not very related, to produce a strong dramatic effect through contrast. After the work was unveiled at the Guangdong Museum of Art, it was quickly listed as a special project exhibition of the Guangzhou Triennial that year. This is also the only time that the Triennale has been presented in the form of a solo exhibition since its fourth session.
This is the answer to the practice of the flesh. At this point, Qiu Guangping finally found the most important way of creation in his artistic creation-"presence".
Habitat 280x140cm Oil on canvas 2019
In the form of being present, to experience the keen and delicate inner reaction, to face the complex and true cross-section of life, to examine and torture the land where you live.
All the timely and vivid feelings will be condensed into his pen experience. This experience is presented to us with a fiery visual appeal. Whether it is anxiety, panic, restlessness, and despair, or it is excited, excited, impulsive, as if it has been injected with the power of galloping...... These feelings that are difficult to hide are the echoes that the artist has heard in our ears after sounding the alarm bell from the depths of his life.
The Edge of Heaven 55x38cm Oil on canvas 2017
04
What exactly is art? He has passed the age of no confusion, and it took him half a lifetime to finally figure out an answer that satisfies him:
Art is the conscience of the times. So it should be both warm and sharp.
Qiu Guangping picked up the axe in his heart and sharpened it to a shiny finish.
Embattled, Oil on canvas, 300X750cm, 2009
Return of the King, 50x100cm, oil on canvas, 2019
postscript
Postscript: The original article was published in the December 2016 issue of "Modern Youth" magazine, after that, Qiu Guangping successively held "Ruins", "Zero", "Fangyuan Realm - Animism" solo exhibitions in China, and during the Lunar New Year in 2020, he also held a large-scale solo exhibition of "Knight's Singing" at Caesars Palace and Wynn Palace in Las Vegas, USA, and the American mainstream media "Los Angeles Times" commented on his international touring exhibition: "This is the most professional and influential painting exhibition held by Chinese painters in the United States in recent years, It is a successful high-end exchange and exhibition event in the U.S.-China art world. Qiu Guangping also won this year's "Artistic Achievement Award" in the United States.
In the following years, Qiu Guangping no longer only focuses on human beings, but adopts seemingly peaceful but actually deeper forms of expression to explore the fate and destination of the entire living being. In the new work, we can see that for the first time, he combined the panda element with his usual strong identification yellow, giving the humble panda in the public's impression a brave chivalric temperament; You can see the emaciated and tired male lion on the barren plains where the fire is not exhausted, like a hero in the twilight.
Qiu Guangping depicts the scene in a highly anthropomorphic way, and those lives that have been neglected in the course of human civilization are like continuing to repeat the existential tragedy of the jungle on the charred ruins. Over the years, he has been building a more humane and generous set of universal values. He uses his works to remind us to have more respect and thinking about human nature and life. All this goes far beyond those empty grand narrative schemas. In front of his works, we can feel a profound interrogation and reflection.
(Please enjoy it in landscape mode)
Paradise No.1, Oil on canvas, 280x1920cm, 2013
(Text/Chen You)
(Source: Lanrun Aesthetic Space)
About the Artist
Qiu Guangping is a professor and professional artist. Born in Rong County, Sichuan Province in 1975, he graduated from Sichuan Fine Arts Institute in 1996, was specially recruited by the School of Arts of Sichuan University in 2003, graduated with a master's degree in 2006, and successively taught at Sichuan Conservatory of Music and Chengdu Jincheng University Art College. President of Sichuan Oil Painting Society, Vice President of Sichuan Contemporary Oil Painting Institute. His works have participated in hundreds of important group exhibitions at home and abroad, such as the Venice Biennale, Art Basel, and the Salon at the Grand Palais in Paris, and have held large-scale solo exhibitions at the Shanghai Art Museum, Wenzhou Museum, Sichuan Museum, Guangdong Museum of Art, Xi'an Art Museum, Rong Bao Zhai, Las Vegas Wynn, Caesars Palace, Poetry Art Museum, etc., and have published and distributed a number of personal monographs by Sichuan Fine Arts Publishing House, Hebei Fine Arts Publishing House, Shanxi Sanjin Publishing House and other institutions. His works include easel paintings, sculptures, installations, videos, performances, etc., and he is committed to various cross-border experimental art collaborations and various art public welfare activities.