QU Yan (b.1980)

1980 Born in Fushun, Liaoning, China

2006 Graduated from Luxun Academy of Fine Arts with a postgraduate degree in oil painting

Currently living in Shanghai

Solo Exhibition

2022 “Voyage”, Shun Art Gallery, Tokyo, Japan

2021 “Rainy Ruins”, Shun Art Gallery, Shanghai, China

2015 “Cohesion and Unrestrained”, Dongli Gallery, Taipei

2014 “Notes of Brahman Travel” Qu Yan Bicycle Riding Sichuan-Tibet Line, Oil Painting and Photography Exhibition, Feima Art Museum, Chengdu, China

2013 “Westword Journey 1600”, Feima Art Museum, Chengdu, China

2012 “Bodhi Branches in Space”, Feima Art Museum, Chengdu, China

2009 “The Door of Redemption”, Feima Art Museum, Chengdu, China

2008 “Three sacrifices to the soul”, Feima Art Museum, Chengdu, China

2007 “Cold and Grey Metaphysics”, Feima Art Museum, Chengdu, China

2006 “Landscape in Memory”, 798 Blue Gallery, Beijing, China

Qu Yan grew up in the Fushun Coal Mine in Northeast China since he was a child, and has a deep understanding of the suffering of the people at the bottom of society. Through painting, the artist constantly asks about the relationship between human beings and their homes, between homes and nature, and concerns and reflects the living conditions of human beings in the heavy industrial civilization. The use of color in his works is extremely restrained, and the rich colors are compressed into the overall grayscale, and such grayscale is closer to the artist’s heart — the individual’s “nostalgia” behind the desolation of the spiritual home. The artist hopes to use pictures to express the flow of time, often brushing and overlapping on the same painting, this method is the process of carving time, just like the formation of ore texture, the hidden energy is surging under the form. At the same time, the artist continues to expand his creative dimension by bicycle riding in the Chinese west and exploring Zen’s essence. 

His works have been increasingly favored by collectors in recent years, and have been selected by the Beijing International Biennale Organizing Committee, the Lei Feng Memorial Hall, the American Center for Contemporary Art, the American Development China Project Assistance Foundation, the Datong International Art Museum in Taiwan, and the Milan Library in Italy. It has been collected by other institutions; He has won the highest award of the Meiyuan Cup “Academic Award” and the “Gold Award” of the Liaoning College Student Art Exhibition.