* University Museum and Art Gallery *

Writing the Mind: Paintings by Xu Yanzhou
6 August to 14 September 2008

The University Museum and Art Gallery of the University of Hong Kong is delighted to present an exhibition, "Writing the Mind" featuring oil paintings by a Chinese realist oil painter, Xu Yanzhou.

Born in Qingdao, Xu Yanzhou obtained his BA degree in 1983 at the Shandong Academy of Arts and became a lecturer there, and later at the Beijing Peili University, University of Regina in Canada and Tulane University in the USA. Xu also received a scholarship to conduct research in oil painting at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing. In 1991 Xu took up a post as visiting professor/artist at Luther College in the University of Regina, Canada. During Xu's study at Tulane University in New Orleans in 1993, he won the Society of the Four Arts Award at the 56th Annual National Exhibition of Contemporary American Paintings in Palm Beach, Florida. Xu completed his MFA at Tulane University in 1995. He was the youngest oil painter to publish a monograph of his art work in China, and had a solo exhibition at the China Art Gallery.

On show will be paintings showing Xu Yanzhou not just adapting realist techniques but also transforming them and the styles of masters to create his own characters. Through complex compositions and use of colour, Xu expresses his conceptual and even surrealist thinking, and his belief in xieyi to be the ultimate beauty in art.

The topics of Xu Yanzhou's paintings are diverse, ranging from realistic rural paintings, captivating female portraits, imaginative paintings which are close to science fiction and large scale paintings of animals. He incorporates modern ideas into his work, questioning life and society. The changes in Xu's art, his choice of topics and styles, follow changes in his own experiences.