Chinese peasant paintings
Huxian Peasant Painting
In 1988 Huxian County was named the County of Painting by the Chinese Ministry of Culture. Situated in Shaanxi Province near Xi’an, Huxian has beautiful surrounding landscapes, with the Qinling Mountains to the south and the Wei River to the north. It is well known in China and abroad as a famous centre of peasant painting.
Developing out of traditional folk arts such as paper cuts and embroidery, peasant painting first appeared in Huxian County during the Great Leap Forward movement in the late 1950s. This art is said to have originated when Huxian County peasants were building a new reservoir and began painting pictures of their work in order to keep a record and to inspire them to work even better. This movement of mass mobilisation for agricultural projects also coincided with a campaign to popularise literacy and basic education and medicine amongst the villagers.
The themes and contents of the peasant painting followed political movements from the Great Leap Forward to the Cultural Revolution in the late 1960s and 1970s. They therefore depicted the socialist campaigns, which were also reflected in slogans, posters and billboards. Collective endeavour and community goals were clearly evident, even if in an idealistic mode which could be seen as utopian.
These first peasant painters did not even have proper paints, but used soot, lime, and the red soil of the area to make paint. The County Committee organised art classes so that professionals could teach these peasants how to paint.
At that time most paintings focused on work. Women workers and educators could also be seen taking an active role in these endeavours and other walks of life. Now, peasant painters portray almost every aspect of their daily life: tending livestock, children playing, local theatre, village traditions, swimming and other sports, elders playing Chinese games and other topics. Vivid and colourful scenes, such as plentiful harvests and busy festivals, are depicted against beautiful landscape settings. They all portray the atmosphere of peasant life with a naive charm.
Since developing more than fifty years ago there are now more than 2,000 painters in Huxian County. On display here is a selection from the Liu clan.
Chinese Paper Cuts
Chinese paper cutting is a unique form of art and has existed for thousands of years with a long history featuring both national and regional themes. Paper began as a precious commodity in the Han Dynasty. Most of the individuals with access to paper for an entertainment cause such as art were usually nobles in royal palaces.
The first paper cut can be traced date back to the period known as the Northern and Southern Dynasties (A.D. 386-581). From the 7th to 13th century, paper cutting became especially popular and primarily during Chinese holiday festivals.
In the rural countryside in mainland China, paper cutting is a traditionally female past time. In the past, most girls were expected to master it and brides were often judged by their ability. Professional paper cutting artists are usually male and have guaranteed incomes and work together in workshops.
In the past paper cuts were used as patterns, especially for embroidery and lacquer work. Today, paper cuts are predominantly decorative. They decorate walls, windows, doors, columns, mirrors, lamps and lanterns in homes. The bright colours of red, green or light blue paper cuts provide a strong foil to depict a joyous atmosphere. Therefore they are often found in wedding ceremonies or festivals in China as a means of good luck.
In Chinese culture it can reflect many aspects of life such as prosperity, health, or harvest. Some paper cuts embody stories about the pleasure gained from the achievement of common goals.
There are two methods of manufacture: one using scissors, the other using knives. In the scissor technique, the artist attaches several pieces of paper together. The pattern is then cut with sharp scissors.
Knife cuttings are produced by putting numerous layers of paper on a fairly soft base consisting of a mix of tallow and ashes. Following a pattern, the artist cuts the pattern into the paper with a sharp knife. Skilled crafters can even cut out different drawings freely without stopping.
Chinese Cultural Revolution Posters
Traditionally, Chinese political culture has used art to propagate ideals of acceptable behaviour and thought. This practice continued with the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949. Propaganda art continued to be one of the crucial ways to explain and illustrate the policies of the moment and the Communist Party's visions of the future. It was used as a tool to reinforce the messages passed on by other media such as newspapers, film and radio.
Through its control of both the artists and the publishing sector, the Chinese Communist Party was able to force its interpretation of society on the population. In an environment where not much else was available, their composition and visual content appealed to the audience, while the political and social message was passed on in a hidden manner.
The cultural revolution posters made extensive use of socialist realism, not simply to show 'life as it was,' but also to portray 'life as it should be,' to educate the people in the revolutionary improvement taking place 'in the spirit of socialism’. This made the posters a type of artistic faction, a combination of fact and fiction, highlighting the positive and covering over anything negative.
The cultural revolution shaped posters of varying styles to cover different themes such as modernisation of agriculture, speeding up industrialisation, struggle against imperialism and defence of the motherland.
Given the dominance of agriculture at the time it is natural to see farmers as national heroes. Their villages and surroundings always give the viewer an optimistic and usually dynamic impression of the rural setting — although they reflect real-life situations - usually in strong and bright colours.
They are often prominent in their simplicity of design and colouring, somewhat reminiscent of the block prints made in the war years.
During the Cultural Revolution, propaganda posters were a major means of communication and, at a time when access to information was restricted, millions were produced and widely distributed.
Chinese cultural revolution sketchbook drawings
Gu Xiong
When We Were Young: Up to the Mountains, Down to the Villages - The source of my sketchbooks
When I returned to China in the summer of 2001, I found over twenty old sketchbooks. They were filled with my own drawings made during the Cultural Revolution when I was young. As I flipped through the pages, memories of my life in the countryside leapt out of the fading images, which shaped the fate of a whole generation. Our eventual awakening enabled us to re-appropriate our destinies.
Through these sketchbooks, that period re-emerges, realistically depicting my life experience, passion and thought. In search of art, I obtained an inner freedom and hope. In the analysis of my sketchbooks, I would like to approach the Cultural Revolution from personal, historical and political perspectives.
When I was seventeen years old, I was sent to the countryside for four years, like millions of others. We were far away from our homes, and every day we worked hard in the fields from sunrise to sunset without knowing when we would be able to leave. There was no electricity, no radio, and not enough food to eat. Life was difficult. But it was a valuable education and experience. I started to understand the real meaning of life. This was where I started to draw: on the field, when we were allowed to rest. At night I drew out my thoughts and feelings from everyday life under the light of my kerosene lantern. And soon my hope rose from within through my art. I was closer to the people, to nature, and to myself.
I produced more than twenty sketchbooks through four years in the countryside. In these books there was isolation, melancholy and hope. There were also drawings of many people whom I loved and worked with, and many places and landscapes which I had worked on. I have many memories of them and how they changed me.
Through these sketches, I began to develop an independent will. My concepts, language and expressions in art began to shift. Dissatisfaction with reality and hope for the future surfaced in my sketches. The emotions embedded in my drawings reveal a layered tension of history and environment. They depict a youth's disillusionment and the beginning of a real life. The quest for art became a search for self and a medium of communication between the outer world and my spirit. Eventually, an inner art triumphed over the external environment.
My four long years in the countryside taught me how to transform negatives into positives and to never lose hope. I remembered my mother’s words, “Time will change everything.” But the impatience of my youth led me to wonder how long I had to wait for change. It was only after this period of my life when I realised it was my hope that carried me through.
Gu Xiong’s artistic work:
Gu Xiong received his BFA and MFA degrees from the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute in Chongqing, China. In Canada, he twice attended the Banff Centre for the Arts as artist-in-residence, and in addition to many other colleges and universities in Canada, the United States and China.
A multi-media artist, he now lives in Canada, works with painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, photography, video, digital imagery, text, performance art and installation. He has exhibited nationally and internationally, including more than 35 solo exhibitions and three public art commissions. He has participated in over 70 prominent national and international group exhibitions including the Shanghai Biennale (2004), where he was one of four Canadian representatives; MultipleCity (Panama, 2003); Le Mois de la Photo (Montréal, 2001); the Montréal Biennale (2000), the Kwangju Biennale (Korea, 1995); and the ground-breaking exhibition “China Avant-Garde” at the China National Museum of Fine Arts (Beijing, 1989). His work is represented in the collections of the National Gallery of Canada, the China National Museum of Fine Arts, and the Vancouver Art Gallery, among many other museums and private collections.
Gu Xiong has done three large public art projects in Canada and United States: in the Safeco Field, Washington State Major League Baseball Stadium, Seattle and in the Seattle Public Library Columbia City Branch, Seattle, WA, USA; in the MacDonald Stewart Art Centre Donald Forster Sculpture Park, University of Guelph, ON, Canada.
Gu Xiong has published two books and five solo exhibition catalogues. His writing and art works are published in art catalogues, magazines and newspapers. His art work has received significant critical recognition, including reviews in the international art magazines, Flash Art and Art in America, and The New York Times. The documentary “The Yellow Pear: The Story of Gu Xiong” from the series A Scattering of Seeds: The Creation of Canada was broadcast on The History Channel in March, 2001. In the capacity of curator, Gu Xiong has organized critically-acclaimed exhibitions of work by emerging artists in Canada and China.
He has served on Canada Council Visual Art Grant Jury, Seattle Arts Commission Jury, BC Arts Council Jury, and Vancouver Foundation Jury. As Associate Professor in the Department of Art History, Visual Art and Theory at the University of British Columbia, Gu Xiong is engaged in the disciplines of installation, painting, drawing, photography and contemporary art theory.
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African Prints from South Africa and Ethiopia.
Support these two charities between April and June 2009.
See below for more details....
The Bethesda Arts Centre is a unique resource in the Eastern Cape of South Africa that provides training, education and a platform for the emerging talents of artists from township communities.
The Bethesda Arts Centre runs rich and varied training, empowerment and income-generating programmes that are changing the lives of some of the most disadvantaged people in South Africa.
Nieu Bethesda got its name from the pool of Bethesda, said to have been at the sheep gate of the old city of Jerusalem. According to the story, when the waters of the pool were stirred by an angel, anyone entering it would be healed.
Nieu Besthesda is nestled high in a valley under the shadow of the Compassburg mountain in the Great Karoo. There are no streetlights, the roads are untarred, and the beautiful semi-desert landscape, wide skies and artistic reputation attract tourists from all over the world.
But in the township, living conditions are harsh. Little has changed in the past decade, and like many rural township communities in the Eastern Cape, education and employment opportunities are almost non-existent, and the majority of the population depends on government pensions to survive.
The Arts centre offers a unique opportunity to break out of a life of deprivation and boredom for rewarding and inspiring work.
At the Arts Centre, students undertake training in drawing, printmaking and sculpture with occasional workshops in ceramics and mosaic. Once trained, Centre artists can use the studios and equipment for their own self-directed work, passing on their skills to new students, and exhibiting and selling from the Centre’s gallery.
Gemini Action International (GAI) is a UK registered charity. Set up in 1987 the charity supports the Ethiopian Gemini Trust (EGT). The Ethiopian Gemini Trust is an indigenous Non Government Organisation whic looks after poor families in Addis Ababa with twins.
The Ethiopian Gemini Trust was established in 1983 in Addis Ababa. It seeks to address urban poverty in Ehtiopia through support and advocacy on issues affecting the poor, especially children, young people and their families. EGT also seeks to promote positive images of young people through their artistic creativity, and to encourage their educational achievement.
The Youth Programme of the EGT includes a team of eight artists who develop traditional Ethiopian imagery in modern and individual directions. Largely self-taught, they work towards supporting themselves and their dependants.