Exhibition period: September 22nd to October 11th, 2015

Opening time: September 22, 2015 10:30

Seminar: September 22, 2015 14:30

Exhibition location: Central Hall, Hall C, Hall A, and Hall B on the first floor of Shenzhen Guan Shanyue Art Museum

Organizers: Shenzhen Municipal Bureau of Culture, Sports and Tourism, Shenzhen Federation of Literary and Art Circles, and Oil Painting Research Institute of the Chinese Political Consultative Conference Museum of Culture and History

Undertaking units: Shenzhen Guan Shanyue Art Museum, Shenzhen Artists Association

 Oil painting has been introduced from the West and, through the research and creation of several generations of artists, has become a visual carrier for expressing Chinese cultural themes and ideas. It has also become a language for expressing the cultural sentiments of Chinese painters. The dissemination and widespread social acceptance of oil painting in China have also given it the support of China's own cultural environment.

In the new context of global cultural convergence, agitation, and collision, Chinese oil painting needs to find its own development direction. In recent years, a large number of oil painters have attached great importance to promoting tradition, staying rooted in their homeland, and exploring creativity at the cultural and spiritual level, reflecting a new cultural consciousness. Freehand oil painting is a new academic phenomenon in contemporary Chinese oil painting, which also reflects the new cultural choices of Chinese oil painters.

The essential support and inner academic ideal of "freehand oil painting" is the "spirit of freehand brushwork", which is also the fundamental driving force for many painters to continuously invest enthusiasm in exploration. As an important characteristic of Chinese art tradition, "freehand brushwork" has a broad and profound connotation, including the integration of human and nature, self and the world, and also showcases language features with Eastern cultural attributes. Many artists, on the one hand, immerse themselves in nature, stay in the hot land, delve into life, and care about the reality of social development, actively creating in freehand oil painting to showcase the cultural spirit of the times. On the other hand, they strive to draw nourishment from the ideological concepts and visual methodology of traditional Chinese culture, reverse the impact and influence of the image era on painting language, and carry out practical inheritance and exploration in the academic context, thus forming the rich individual achievements and overall magnificent atmosphere of the "freehand oil painting" school.

In the process of the development of "freehand oil painting" over the past decade, many artists have spontaneously organized continuous sketching, exhibitions, and academic exchange activities. In order to showcase the development of the "freehand oil painting" school and promote the discussion of the academic topic of "freehand oil painting", the Shenzhen Guan Shanyue Art Museum has initiated the hosting of the "Inheritance of Culture - A Study Exhibition of Famous Masters of the Chinese Freehand Oil Painting School", which is of great significance in collecting achievements and promoting research. This exhibition has received strong support from the Shenzhen Special Fund for the Development of Propaganda and Culture. After the exhibition in Shenzhen, it will also be exhibited in various places with the support of multiple art museums. This move has also received a positive response from oil painters, who carefully present their artistic masterpieces and create a picturesque landscape of "freehand oil painting", with a sense of public service and the convergence of various rivers. These works are intertwined with a full passion for artistic exploration and rich language forms to create a vibrant cultural vitality of the times, allowing people to anticipate the prospect of continuous improvement in Chinese oil painting.

Dean of the Central Academy of Fine Arts, Vice Chairman of the Chinese Artists Association

Van Di'an

August 2015