Yan Shizhong Oil Painting Exhibition

Yan Shizhong, a Chinese-American painter, is a very talented oil painter. He was among the first group of oil painting postgraduates after the end of the Cultural Revolution, admitted to the master's program of the Oil Painting Department at the China Academy of Art, studying alongside Hu Zhenyu, Xu Mangyao, Shang Ding, Gao Shaohua, and others, under the tutelage of oil painting predecessors like Quan Shanshi. After graduation, Yan Shizhong returned to his hometown in Shandong and worked as a professional painter at the Shandong Provincial Art Museum, soon being recognized as a national first-class artist. Later, he traveled far and settled in the United States. After arriving in the United States, Yan Shizhong broadened his horizons, especially deeply moved by the color perception of Impressionist painting. Thus, he further researched and explored the color language of oil painting in his artistic practice, creating a series of colorful and splendid oil paintings—'Galloping Horses Series,' 'Ballet Series,' 'Landscape Series,' etc., which were widely welcomed and favored by American audiences. 'The Uyghurs under the Sun' is a series of oil paintings that Yan Shizhong created many years after moving to the United States. Feeling a lack of passion and inspiration from life in his creations abroad, he recalled the touching experiences during his postgraduate studies at the Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts (now China Academy of Art) when he lived deeply among the people of Xinjiang. At that time, the teachers and students lived, ate, and worked with the Uyghur locals, and the experience of sketching and painting from life in the area left a deep impression on him. Therefore, in 2008, Yan Shizhong returned to the beautiful Xinjiang of his motherland, went to the Errenji settlement in Kashgar, Southern Xinjiang, to paint from life, and once again experienced the Uyghurs of this land, finding them unchanged—simple, enthusiastic, living peaceful lives. Deeply moved, Yan Shizhong used brilliant colors and bold, smooth strokes to depict the warm sunshine, the clear skies, and the simple people, creating a large number of works. These pieces neither deliberately embellish nor beautify, nor are they artificially profound, but rather, with the sincere eyes of a painter, they discover the beauty of simplicity in the commonplace, everyday life and portray it on the canvas.