“Gentle Contact” by contemporary Chinese-American artist Lu Jianjun beautifully depicts a young Chinese woman dressed in traditional Chinese clothing, sitting on a wooden chair, surrounded by traditional Chinese furniture and antique objects, such as a porcelain jar and jewelry. All this harkens back to the artist’s childhood visit to his mother’s hometown in southern China. The domestic details, rich color palette, and light versus dark contrast reveal Lu’s classical training in oil painting with a nod to classic Flemish and Dutch artists. The sitter’s elongated hands and fingers suggest the influence of European Mannerism, an anticlassical style that emphasized idealized features. Born in Hangzhou, China, Lu Jianjun studied oil paintings at Shandong Fine Art College in 1986 and at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing in 1996. He won several art awards between 1991-1997 throughout China and Japan. After moving to San Francisco in 1999, Lu made several trips throughout the United States and Europe to expand his appreciation for paintings by European masters. At the age of six, he is said to have suffered permanent scars on his face and impaired memory after being hit by a loaded van. Young and injured, Lu withdrew into a world of silence; however, his disaster spurred an obsessive pursuit of art and turned pain into his own keen artistic style that is both deep and subtle plus antique with a modern artistic charm. Most of the characters in his paintings are beautiful and “delicate” women, dressed in costumes of the late Qing Dynasty, sitting quietly on a Chinese-style classical chair, exuding a quiet and distant mood of ancient thought.
“Gentle Contact” by Lu Jianjun 呂建軍(American, born in China) - Oil on canvas / 2005 - Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (Richmond) #womeninart #art #oilpainting #LuJianjun #ChineseArt #artwork #VirginiaMuseumofFineArts #VMFA #portraitofawoman #womensart #beauty #ChineseAmericanArtist #ChineseAmericanArt
