Qiu Xingxiong's watercolor paintings, in which nature and water color blend, present a chaotic and illusory image.
On the screen, the colors are blurred. The colors blend, penetrate, and precipitate, as if there are floating clouds and broken waves, birds and whales encountering. The dripping characteristics of watercolor are revealed on the canvas with the transformation of lines and the spread of colors, but what is eliminated is the difference between traditional watercolor and contemporary art. So in a drenched ink, I found the "concept" of watercolor painting.
It's hard to ignore Qiu Xingxiong's printmaking and ink freehand artistic conception in watercolor. In terms of picture processing, he starts from the angular objects carved by knives and axes, integrates the craggy printmaking and the unbridled ink painting, and establishes a unique three-dimensional perception through the flow of water, and finally presents Qiu Xingxiong's spiritual concept of "seemingly ordinary and the most bizarre". His sensitivity to color brightness, three-dimensional composition, and the overall rhythm of the picture is unmatched by others, so he has formed a unique conceptual expression of the painter.
Pan Tianshou once said: "The pen is wrong, the ink is wrong, and the interest is not in the genius skill." "Qiu Xingxiong's watercolors don't have a program. Because the uncertain flow of water, the inadvertent precipitation of color, and the insignificant tightness of materials can all make the environment of painting change, and Qiu Xingxiong's thinking lies in inadvertently seeing the slight waves, and finding the real visual schema of watercolor between flow, ups and downs, and tightness.
Work appreciation
"The Floating Sky No. 8"
2018, Composite on canvas, 60x80cm
Stone Mountain
2018, composite on paper, 80x160cm
"Stream"
2017, composite on paper, 200x200cm
"Boundless Sky No.1"
2018，76cmx112cm
Streamer
2019，纸本水性材料，75x108cm
Home Far Away
2024, composite on paper, 188x240cm
Revelation - Death
2022, Composite on canvas, 120x170cm
"Hometown Mountain"
2019，纸本色粉，150x150cm
"Sit and watch the clouds rise"
2019, composite on paper, 150x160cm
Between Heaven and Earth
2016, composite on paper, 200x200cm
Skylight
2020, composite on paper, 200x200cm
"Hometown Red Clay"
2019，纸本水性材料，60x120cm
"The Wind is Clear and the Moon is Bright"
2024, Composite on canvas, 160x100cm
"Lake Light"
2023, Composite on canvas, 150x200cm
"White Practice"
2023, Composite on canvas, 150x200cm
"The North Mountain"
2018, Composite on canvas, 160x60cm
Aqua Sky series
"Water Sky"
2014, composite on paper, 200x200cm
"Water Heaven II"
2017, Composite on canvas, 120x120cm
"Water Heaven III"
2018, composite on paper, 80x100cm
"Four Days in the Water"
2017, composite on paper, 120x120cm
"Water Sky Five"
2017, composite on paper, 120x120cm
"Water Sky No. 6"
2017, composite on paper, 120x120cm
(Source: Comprehensive Watercolor, Fuyang Literature and Art, Gongwang Art Museum)
Artist Profile
Qiu Xingxiong, a native of Changshan, Zhejiang, graduated from China Academy of Art, and is a professor and doctoral supervisor at the School of Art of Zhejiang Normal University. Former Dean of the Academy of Fine Arts, Zhejiang Normal University. He is currently a member of the Chinese Artists Association, vice chairman of the Zhejiang Watercolor Painters Association, deputy director of the Zhejiang Comprehensive Art Committee, director of the Zhejiang Printmakers Association, director of the Zhejiang Artists Association, member of the Steering Committee of Fine Arts Education in Colleges and Universities of Zhejiang Province, and vice chairman of the Jinhua Artists Association.