Yi Qu
Chinese artist, Yi Qu, has won international prizes for silk painting and his works have been exhibited in Shanghai, Beijing and Nanjing as well as Hong Kong, Taiwan, Britain, America and Japan. He lives in Nantong in China’s Jiangsu Province and his paintings have been brought to Australia by his sister, Dr Bo Qu, (PhD in mathematics) who lives at Aratula with her partner, Mark Ross, and works as a Research Fellow at Griffith University.
Here’s Yi’s story as written by Bo - Yi was born in December 1967 in Nantong, Jiangsu Province, China, and has had a major hearing impairment since birth. His parents are both high school teachers and his father started teaching him to draw on a small blackboard from his early childhood. After Yi completed primary school, the family moved to the city and his parents decided to let Yi stay at home to concentrate on learning to paint. From the age of 13, he stayed painting at home all day while his parents taught him social science and literature at night. Sister Bo was studying at university in Shanghai and bought many painting books for Yi to study.
In 1984 when Yi was still a teenager, his paintings were sent to America for an international children’s exhibition and one of his paintings was collected and stored by the organisers of the exhibition. Another was printed in the exhibition leaflet. Yi lived near the people’s park in Nantong city and every morning went there to sketch people and beautiful flowers. The head of the park noticed him and asked him to work in the Nantong Museum which is located inside the park. Yi’s job is to copy ancient paintings. Nantong Museum is the first museum in China and has many ancient paintings and calligraphy. Yi copies huge paintings for showing outside while the museum keeps the originals untouched. Yi can reproduce the old paintings exactly the same, even copies the old marks.
In 1987 when Yi was 20 years old, the special education department of Chang Chun University announced it would be recruiting 15 handicapped artists from throughout China. This was the first time ever in China that an opening to higher education had been made available for handicapped young people. Yi was asked to try out among thousands of candidates from his province. With only one month to prepare for the entry exams, and as he only had a formal primary education, Yi and his parents worked day and night to revise his literature background. The exams were held in the capital city of Nanjing and Yi successfully passed all seven exams, achieving the top score in creative painting. He was accepted in the first enrolment of handicapped artists at Chang Chun University, majoring in painting. Yi spent three years at university, during which time three of his paintings were again sent to America for an international exhibition. In 1990, he graduated from university and returned to his job at Nantong Museum.
The greatest influence on Yi’s art has come from one of China’s master painters, Fan zeng who is also from Nantong. When Yi was 14 years old, Fan zeng visited his hometown and was shown some of Yi’s paintings by Yi’s mother and her friend who happened to be a good friend of Fan zeng. Fan zeng was delighted with the work, saying "Very good. After 20 or more years, another master of painting will appear in Nantong." He then asked Yi to go to see him every day and watch him paint. One day, Fan zeng exhibited a "new" painting which everyone admired and said how great it was.Then the master told them: "I have fooled you. It is not painted by me. It has been done by a 14-year-old child." Then the master signed a poem on Yi’s painting, recording this story and saying he greatly appreciated Yi’s talent.
Yi’s first exhibition in Nantong attracted much attention with the local television and newspaper reporting on its success. When Fan zeng returned to Nantong, Yi showed him photos from the exhibition and Fan zeng wrote in the album: "Yi has a great sense of art...will have enormous achievement." Yi has since exhibited his works in many places in China including Shanghai, Beijing and Nanjing as well as internationally in Hong Konng, Taiwan, Britain, America and Japan.
In April 2000, Yi was selected to represent Jiangsu Province at a national silk painting competition against artists from thoughout China. He won first prize. In the same year, he represented China at an international silk painting competition in the Czech Republic, winning the silver prize. In 2002, Yi went to India for the same international competition, winning another silver prize. That same year, the book of Yi’s paintings was published by the Shanghai people’s art publishing house. The great master, Fan zeng, wrote a poem of appreciation which is included in the book. Some of the paintings in the book required a long time to complete - "Playing Music of Spring River with Flowers Out In The Moonlight" took 14 months while "The Night Fair" took six months.
Yi’s specialty is sketching dancing from TV programs and the latter part of the book shows the sketches he makes while watching the TV. He developed the talent of capturing the dancing gesture in a second and recalling it according to memory. If he liked the movement, he would make a painting of it and his dance paintings are fluently smooth and lively with great movement and colour. Bo and Mark are arranging for Yi to visit Australia.