Xu Hualing

Biography

Xu Hualing's painting material and techniques are derived from Chinese traditional gongbi painting, where dense linework and pale color are two important elements in her work. She resets these elements, so that the lines no longer just outline the shapes, but are used to express the textures. The fine lines constitute hair, dresses, lace, etc., which are woven into the surface from the actual threads. Instead, the colors become the contours of the shapes, which faintly blur and create an indistinct form, as if they are covered in a transparent veil, like a young girl wrapped in a cocoon. This abstract simplicity of the painting forms a unique sense of beauty. The artist depicts the subject matter from a private perspective with sense of lens, and even places the realism of traditional gongbi painting and photographic printing in one work. A visual experience with different yet interesting textures appears in the field of Chinese painting, bringing an open sensory experience to the viewers. Xu uses her unique painting language to reveal her own realm of senses, and to express the concern for life and living. Her depiction of the emotions and consciousness of young women is also an intimate care for herself as a woman.

Xu Hualing, born in Heilongjiang, China in 1975, currently teaches in the Department of Chinese Painting, Chinese Painting at Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA). She graduated from the Department of Chinese Painting at CAFA in 2000, graduated with a master's degree in 2016, and receives a doctorate in 2020 by CAFA. In 2003, her work Scent No.5 won the Academic Innovation Award of the first Light of the Academy exhibition of the Central Academy of Fine Arts; in 2004, the work Dragonfly was selected for the 10th National Art Exhibition and was collected by Zhejiang Art Museum, and the work Scent No. 8 won the Li Chang Cup first National Youth Chinese Painting Exhibition Gold Award and was collected. Since 2001, she has had exhibitions in Beijing, New York, San Francisco, London, Amsterdam, Nanjing, Shanghai, Oldenburg, Tokyo and Sydney. Her selected exhibitions includingEternal Beauty, F2 Gallery, Beijing, Los Angeles; Xu Hualing – Chivalrous Women, Kohler Muller Gallery, Amsterdam, 2008;Guan Ju, Tang Contemporary Art Center, Hong Kong, 2015; Feather Light – Solo Exhibition for Xu Hualing, Today Art Museum, Beijing, 2016; Scent–Xu Hualing's recent works, NanHai Art, San Francisco, 2019. Her works have been published in New Fine Line Paintings Literature Books: Xu Hualing Volume, Contemporary Chinese Meticulous Painting – Xu Hualing, and Chinese Contemporary Artists Case Study: Xu Hualing's Figures.