Born in Xuzhou, Jiangsu Province, in 1969, Zhu Yamei graduated from the Department of Chinese Painting, Huaqiao University, majored in the Landscape Painting. Currently she teaches in the College of Art, South-Central University for Nationalities. Her works have won the second and third National Landscape Painting Exhibitions, and featured in a lot of large scale exhibitions such as the Chinese Art Exhibition - Contemporary Ink Painting Exhibition, New Works of Outstanding Chinese Contemporary Young Artists, Chinese Art Biennale, Annual Invitational Exhibition for Chinese Artists in the 21st Century, Nature and People - Exhibition of Chinese Landscape Painting • Landscape of Oil Painting. In addition, Zhu Zhengeng and his daughter Zhu Yamei’s joint Exhibitions were held in Taiwan, Shanghai, etc. Her works are published in the “Chinese Contemporary Artists Illustrations”, “Biographies of One Hundred of Young Artists from the Mainland China” “Trend of Women Painting at the Ends of the Centuries”, “Chinese Contemporary Painter Illustrations – Landscapes”, “Today Chinese Art Illustrations”, etc. and her publications include “23 Artists of Chinese Painting – Zhu Yamei”, and “Noted Artists of Chinese Painting – Zhu Yamei”. Her works are collected by the National Art Museum of China, Liu Hai Su Art Museum, Revel Art Foundation, etc.

“A painting should be the perfect combination of a painter and the symbols of painting form. “The Bleak and Faint” was a realm that the ancient landscape painters longed for. Ni Zan’s works are the representatives of the empty and ethereal feelings from the Yuan Dynasty, and even affect the works of the contemporary landscape painters. On the one hand, people are dramatically changed in the face of the natural world by the increasing industrialization and urbanization, on the other hand, in the face of the deep and vast landscape painting tradition, as a landscape painter living in the contemporary world, it’s more difficult to choose than the other genre of artists. I believe, a landscape painter should avoid the temptation of various possibilities, the hustle and bustle noise of the outside world, and return to the mind and listen carefully to the mind, the call of tranquility, to make a really suitable artistic choice.”

　–– Zhu Yamei

“Zhuya Mei’s works not only have a strong personal vocabulary, but also contain the essences of traditional landscape painting. The unadorned and vivid character like a small dot, diverted from the plastic of the characters in the bricks of Han Dynasty, it’s a sharp contrast between the light ink outline of the white tower, simplified hut without modification, and a large area of gray.”

–– Gao Weichuan

“She was born with a magnanimous zeal to reveal the source of the mind, with the use of a rounded brush, elegant ink, simple plastic, her infiltration of the overall atmosphere, revealing the painter’s pure passion and a true plain heart, it’s possible that it’s the rare “virginity” of the artist that makes a painting a unique face, distant to secular flows.”

––Liao Wen

“Zhu Yamei’s landscape paintings have a lot of breadth of spirit, and she has simplified her lines and shapes, focusing on the spatial relationships and visual tension of the ink. This is a relationship of modern art, which is reflected in the traditional themes of her works. It’s a contradiction, which may be diverted from her nature, or an unconscious dictate.”

“Zhu Yamei is a special case, if alternating the theme, she would enter the field of experimental ink; if she changes the visual relationship, it would be still a traditional painting. This contradiction is what makes her painting a unique charm.”

––Yi Ying

Translated by Chen Peihua and edited by Sue/CAFA ART INFO

Image Courtesy Zhu Yamei