Recently I travelled to Oxford for a weekend and explored several museums and galleries. By far my favourite exhibition I came across is Qu Leilei’s ‘A Chinese Artist in Britain’ currently showing in the Ashmolean Museum until April of 2018. This exhibition shows Leilei’s progression from “calligraphic collage to an exploration of a new vocabulary of ink language blending lively brushwork with western technique”. The exhibition took place in a thin but long room in the museum. As you walk through the doorway, you’re immediately met with two very large pieces, one named ‘Friendship’ (2012) covering the wall on your left, and the other ‘The Future Remains in Our Own Hands’ (2014) on the wall directly in front. Both of these pieces are ink on paper, and are my two favourite pieces from the exhibition. The subject choice of hands is something I’m interested in as an artist so immediately I’m taking notes and inspiration from his work. The room was also filled with a variety of pieces, all ranging in size, some small sketches and others finished paintings. There was a small section of the room two steps down from the rest, with the walls lined with long, thin pieces of fabric showing Leilei’s early calligraphic collage work. It was interesting to see these two different aesthetics and cultures, Chinese and Western, in the same room and the comparisons/developments between them. I later researched Qu Leilei and discovered that we have very similar influences when it comes to our art work, with us both taking inspiration from classical sculpture and Italian Renaissance paintings, and developing that with the beauty and accuracy of figure paintings. All being his primary focus for this exhibition.

Bibliography

LEILEI, Q. 2012. Friendship [photograph] – Accessed 25th November 2017

Available from : https://www.ashmolean.org/event/qu-leilei-chinese-artist-britain