ILLUSTRATED:

Wang Hwai-qing's teacher was the Chinese master artist Wu Guanzhong, but the creative style he developed was completely different from that of his teacher. There's a sense of the profound in his works, filling the tranquility and elegance with visual tension. The renowned Chinese art critic Jia Fangzhou made this comment about Wang Huaiqing's works:"When examined from a philosophical perspective, Wang Hwai-qing has chosen to travel on an extremely rarefied and exact path. In the treatment of planes we see the depth of space, within the expression figurative abstractionism can be found, in the sensual illusions principles of reason, and in the Western techniques of expression find the cultural sensitivities of the East. Traditional Chinese art has always emphasized the structure. From the spatial layout of the building, the composition of the painting, the framework of calligraphy, the contrast between ink and space of seal scripts through to the hollow spaces of the common paper-cut and more, all approach the subject matter with an eye to its structure. In Wang Huaiqing's work, these traditional elements have been given a creative modern transformation to become the main themes of his own style." (Reference: Domestic Artists Overview, Shanghai Biennale 2000, official website by the China Shanghai Art Museum

In his works from the late 1990's, Wang Huaiqing found his inspiration in traditional wooden furniture. A great change in the disassembly and assembly of traditional concepts is demonstrated, extracting the structure itself to become the central visual motif. Through the breakdown and recombination of furniture, he examines the interdependence between structures and uses a new painting language to re-interpret the world. In the painting, ink such as back and white color tones, the clean surfaces and simple textures create a modernist yet very Chinese atmosphere, providing the audience with a foreign visual experience. Even Michael Sullivan was moved to say:"It is that poetic sense of order created from within a chaotic world that makes Wang Hwai-qing's art so inspiring."