Qiu Shihua

邱 世 华

Painter *1940 Zizhong Sichuan, lives in Shenzhen

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Qiu Shihua, 2010, photo maxmaxovich

Qiu, born in Sichuan in 1940, is one of the oldest Chinese painters of this generation

He graduated from the Department of Oil Painting at Xi’an Art Academy, Shaanxi Province, in 1962, going on to work as a designer of theatre posters in a coal-mining town, which remained his home until 1984. He turned to Taoism in 1989, which has influenced his works in the form of the Chinese Literary Tradition.
During the past twenty years Qiu Shihua's style has evolved gradually from the earthbound to the immaterial, from misty landscapes based on memories of his childhood in north-west China to the rarefied atmosphere of his most recent works. Painting, to Qiu, is a path to transcendence. His mystical paintings require time and patience for the subtle adjustments in tone to register. As he has said: "Everything is flat and calm. 'Form' is unimportant. It is like being in meditation, when the entire cosmos looks like a white mist. Here, time and space seem to be annihilated. Human passions do not matter." Represented by the Gallery Urs Meile, Luzern and Beijing, his extreme minimalism became famous especially in the German speaking West.

Using photos of Qiu's paintings from the Urs Meile website I will present a selection in chronological order for your meditation, without any words: they are all untitled. But since few of us are trained in Taoist visualization, I will add enhanced versions of the underlying landscape paintings obtained by stripping them with digital techniques. These 'x-rays' can be seen by clicking on the photos.



Untitled, 90x120 cm, 1986



Untitled, 150x305 cm, 1996



Untitled, 89.5x140 cm, 2003



Untitled, 150x308 cm, 2008



Untitled, 128x240 cm, 2011