Shen Shengqiu, born in Shenyang in 1941, is a famous oil painter and member of China Artists Association. His creations are mainly portraits of people, including the historical paintings like Nanjing Massacre (1990, collaborated with Feng Fasi) and The Recapture of Taiwan by Zheng Chenggong (1996 – 2004). In artistic approach, he gives priority to simple and steady style in European art history represented by Rembrandt and inscriptive temple murals of Han and Tang dynasties in China, demonstrated in condensed and generous images he’s portrayed and reserved as well as indifferent atmosphere he’s expressed.  

Absorbed in art creation without pursuing the new fad, Shen Shengqiu pays much attention to expression of individual’s real feelings and the character’s internal vitality, illustrated by his oil paintings on human bodies which are solid, intense and rhythmic. On the basis of classical paintings, Shen, in recent years, are employing the artistic approach of lights in impressionism, making images more terse and painting brush more free through catching the rapidly-changing lights and shadows as well as the character’s rich and subtle emotions. Take his recent works Cucumber for example, in which, the character’s facial expression and movements serve well with the environment as an integral whole, natural and simple, without sense of artificiality. Besides, he has been to Sipsongpanna many times for life drawing so as to well express the local manners and customs of Dai Ethnic. In his opinion, people and nature there are more pure. Whatever techniques he employs, Shen Shengqiu has always kept in mind integrating his own feelings in traditional norm and presenting the true appearance of nature in artistic way.

Exhibition of Shen Shengqiu’s Oil Paintings, National Art Museum of China