PRINTCatalogue Note:
"Born in Chongqing, China in 1948, Luo Zhongli learned how to paint while he was young under the influence of his father. He graduated from Senior High School of Sichuan Fin Arts Institute and lived in the rural regions of the Daba Mountains for 10 years. In 1978, he returned to Sichuan Fine Arts Institute. With his hyperrealistic work, ""Father"", Luo won the first prize at the 2nd National Art Exhibition in 1981. This prize brought him a huge honor, making him widely known in China. It also gave him the confidence to establish farmers as the central focus of his art career. With a grand composition, akin to a plaque or a monument, Luo sentimentally depicts the typical image of a Chinese farmer in ""Father"", which has also been praised as a guiding banner for the Chinese painting sphere in the 1980s.
Luo believes that he should focus on the daily lives of farmers in Daba Mountains, the subject he is most familiar with. He wants to depict their sadness and happiness, their joy and anger, their love and hate, and ultimately their death. He said, I think works of art should be human. They should build on
a kind of emotional communication and resonance with most
viewers. To do this, the artist should have true emotions and a
solid foundation in life.
In 1982, Luo graduated from Sichuan Fine Arts Institute and began to work as a teacher at his alma mater in Sichuan. From 1983 to 1986, he went to Belgium to study oil painting at Antwerp Royal Art Institute and received a master's degree. During this time, he traveled to 13 countries in Europe and North America, visiting the important museums and art galleries, and studying famous works. Luo was very impressed by the works of Millet and Bruegel, both of whom painted scenes of peasant life. He succeeded in fusing the influence of the great masters of the past with his own life experience and artistic vision.
Luo is skilled at capturing an ordinary scene in rural life and depicting people who have endured years of heavy labor. He uses his simple brush strokes to depict them without any modification, showing an atmosphere that is natural, real, and intimate. This work is not focused on the story but the depiction, outlining, and atmosphere of the characters and the environment.
After ""Father"", Luo Zhongli completed his graduation portfolio, the ""Hometown"" series, in 1982. These paintings depict the daily lives of the farmers in Daba Mountains, all of which originated from a large number of sketches he had made in the countryside, such as ""Blow Dregs"", ""Over the Threshold"", and ""The Eavesdrop"". With simple skills, pure colors and the flavor of the countryside, he depicted a kind of natural and rustic simplicity of famers from the mountain area. His artistic expression turned from surrealism to domestic realism. These early creations, however, still remained in the line of succession of his artistic concepts and followed an academic realist language.
Luo's painting style evolved f rom vernacular realism to expressionism, which was also the second phase of his artistic creation and a continuance of his first phase. Entering the 1990s, Luo began to change and develop personal language and style. He also experimented with his artistic language in order to discover a kind of style that was able to hold contemporary cultural characteristics and reflect Eastern aesthetics at the same time. His painting language gradually shifted from realism to deformation and exaggeration. He drew images of exaggerated and deformed farmers as well as unrestrained lines and colors, depicting the love and caring between the elderly and the youth, and the men and women of the Daba Mountains with common yet simple emotions. His modeling language in this phase was quite heavy, showing a kind of solid strength and beauty with rustic originality, while his vivid, subjective, and highlighted color contrasts contained the spirit of Chinese folk art and aesthetics. During this period, Luo's brush was full of passion and revealed his masterly skills.
Painted in 2007, ""River Series"" was created during Luo's third phase - contemporary expressionism. In the late 1990s, Luo began to use rough lines and original colors to express his rustic subjects with a half-abstract style. His powerful tone carried a kind of primitiveness. Covering the canvas with a black background, he applied his passionate, stunning, and extremely modern colored lines over it. The composition was dynamic. Humans and animals were depicted with the elements extracted from folk art. The density between the curved and straight lines provides a smooth rhythm to the picture. This new attempt transcends the limit of the narrative language in painting, turning itself into a deep and literary illustration. Art critic Yin Shuangxi once said, ""Actually, Luo's works provide us with a reference to existence, an eternal value of human interaction. When we see his works from this perspective, the lives of the farmers in Daba Mountains go beyond regional natural landscape and become a reflection on our national spirit and value in the process of modernization "". However, the focus was still on humanistic concern, elements of Chinese traditional folk art, and modern and contemporary artistic concepts under globalization. He once said, My style has undergone the baptism of Western modern art, my
study on Western modern and contemporary art, and my return to
Chinese backdrop and traditional culture. After I distinguished the
difference between the East and the West, my distinctive and unique
personal style began to take shape .
The painting ""River Series"" shows a vivid contrast in its tone. Human scene from the mellow loving lives of a Dabashan peasant couple. "
Luo believes that he should focus on the daily lives of farmers in Daba Mountains, the subject he is most familiar with. He wants to depict their sadness and happiness, their joy and anger, their love and hate, and ultimately their death. He said, I think works of art should be human. They should build on
a kind of emotional communication and resonance with most
viewers. To do this, the artist should have true emotions and a
solid foundation in life.
In 1982, Luo graduated from Sichuan Fine Arts Institute and began to work as a teacher at his alma mater in Sichuan. From 1983 to 1986, he went to Belgium to study oil painting at Antwerp Royal Art Institute and received a master's degree. During this time, he traveled to 13 countries in Europe and North America, visiting the important museums and art galleries, and studying famous works. Luo was very impressed by the works of Millet and Bruegel, both of whom painted scenes of peasant life. He succeeded in fusing the influence of the great masters of the past with his own life experience and artistic vision.
Luo is skilled at capturing an ordinary scene in rural life and depicting people who have endured years of heavy labor. He uses his simple brush strokes to depict them without any modification, showing an atmosphere that is natural, real, and intimate. This work is not focused on the story but the depiction, outlining, and atmosphere of the characters and the environment.
After ""Father"", Luo Zhongli completed his graduation portfolio, the ""Hometown"" series, in 1982. These paintings depict the daily lives of the farmers in Daba Mountains, all of which originated from a large number of sketches he had made in the countryside, such as ""Blow Dregs"", ""Over the Threshold"", and ""The Eavesdrop"". With simple skills, pure colors and the flavor of the countryside, he depicted a kind of natural and rustic simplicity of famers from the mountain area. His artistic expression turned from surrealism to domestic realism. These early creations, however, still remained in the line of succession of his artistic concepts and followed an academic realist language.
Luo's painting style evolved f rom vernacular realism to expressionism, which was also the second phase of his artistic creation and a continuance of his first phase. Entering the 1990s, Luo began to change and develop personal language and style. He also experimented with his artistic language in order to discover a kind of style that was able to hold contemporary cultural characteristics and reflect Eastern aesthetics at the same time. His painting language gradually shifted from realism to deformation and exaggeration. He drew images of exaggerated and deformed farmers as well as unrestrained lines and colors, depicting the love and caring between the elderly and the youth, and the men and women of the Daba Mountains with common yet simple emotions. His modeling language in this phase was quite heavy, showing a kind of solid strength and beauty with rustic originality, while his vivid, subjective, and highlighted color contrasts contained the spirit of Chinese folk art and aesthetics. During this period, Luo's brush was full of passion and revealed his masterly skills.
Painted in 2007, ""River Series"" was created during Luo's third phase - contemporary expressionism. In the late 1990s, Luo began to use rough lines and original colors to express his rustic subjects with a half-abstract style. His powerful tone carried a kind of primitiveness. Covering the canvas with a black background, he applied his passionate, stunning, and extremely modern colored lines over it. The composition was dynamic. Humans and animals were depicted with the elements extracted from folk art. The density between the curved and straight lines provides a smooth rhythm to the picture. This new attempt transcends the limit of the narrative language in painting, turning itself into a deep and literary illustration. Art critic Yin Shuangxi once said, ""Actually, Luo's works provide us with a reference to existence, an eternal value of human interaction. When we see his works from this perspective, the lives of the farmers in Daba Mountains go beyond regional natural landscape and become a reflection on our national spirit and value in the process of modernization "". However, the focus was still on humanistic concern, elements of Chinese traditional folk art, and modern and contemporary artistic concepts under globalization. He once said, My style has undergone the baptism of Western modern art, my
study on Western modern and contemporary art, and my return to
Chinese backdrop and traditional culture. After I distinguished the
difference between the East and the West, my distinctive and unique
personal style began to take shape .
The painting ""River Series"" shows a vivid contrast in its tone. Human scene from the mellow loving lives of a Dabashan peasant couple. "