Exhibition Picture

As one of the most exceptional female Chinese artists known in the international art world, Yu Hong never fails to meet the expectations of art lovers and critics both in and out of China. Her latest exhibition Golden Sky raises the bar even higher, challenging the way people see art when exhibited in a museum or gallery, anywhere in the world.

To enjoy Yu's new works on display at the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing, one has to look up to the ceiling of the exhibition hall - there you will see her four large-sized oil paintings, each 6 meters long and 5 meters wide, that draw on classic works and add people in different gestures, with different expressions, directly looking down on you or somewhere else, making you suddenly realize that you are probably one of them.

"I have to confess that it was not my innovation," Yu told Global Times, with a hint of laughter. "Although it is quite new for today's audiences, in ancient times people also painted on the ceiling, not only on the walls, in many parts of the world," she said.

"Through this special way of exhibiting my works, I am trying to return to the past, to make people think about the ways we humans used to live in olden times."

For many civilizations around the world, looking up to the sky reverently is a gesture showing the appreciation of the awe of life and nature, a mindset that hardly exists today, Yu explained. "People are too busy in various fierce competitions today. They have to do that and unfortunately, something precious like peacefulness in our hearts has long been forgotten when pursuing speed."

Yu's inspiration for her latest works comes from her persistent interest in classic pieces both Eastern and Western. She spent a lot of time observing works from the Italian Renaissance, traditional Chinese paintings and ancient works from other parts of Asia such as Cambodia and Japan and often found herself deeply moved.

Once a student at the Central Academy of Fine Arts, Yu has been interested in classic works since she was a teenager. Her perfect sketch of Michelangelo's David was praised as the best one ever drawn by a student at the academy and was selected to be used as teaching material, even though she was only a freshman at the time.

Five years ago Boston's Museum of Fine Arts invited Yu and a group of Chinese artists to recreate traditional Chinese paintings for a permanent collection. Yu said she drew on the feeling she got from a famous Tang Dynasty (618-907) painting that was perfectly recreated by Emperor Huizong of the Song Dynasty (960-1279). It was then that started her series of paintings based on classic works.

Yu's current exhibition sees one work inspired by a work by Spanish romantic painter Francisco Goya, another by a 17th-century fresco in Bologna, Italy and two by murals in Mogao Grottoes in Dunhuang, Gansu Province and Thousand Buddha Grottoes in Kizil, Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.

With composition and general appearances similar to those of the original classic paintings, Yu has carefully added people that she photographed randomly in the streets or at other occasions in her life.

"Society is made up of thousands of men and women that I photographed and painted here," Yu explained. "They are living their own lives, but no one can escape from the blindness of life."

In Yu's eyes, although everything in the modern world is changing so fast that you can even hardly catch up to it, there is something eternal for human beings, something deeply rooted in everyone's heart, such as love and hate.

"We are used to saying that everything is different from the past, but no, to some extent, we are what we were and will be what we are," Yu said. "What has changed is just the outside material world."

Despite the speed of modern day life, Yu herself has never tried to keep pace. Widely known in the Chinese art world are not only her perfect painting skills and vast imagination, but also her meticulous attention to detail and need to do everything gradually, despite a growing demand for her work.

"I just have to paint slowly, to make myself satisfied with every stroke," Yu said. "I do think I need to paint for my own happiness, not for the market or anyone else."