Qiu Shihua
邱 世 华
Painter *1940 Zizhong Sichuan, lives in Shenzhen
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.