Peng Qi is a contemporary Chinese painter. Born in Wuhan, Hubei Province, in the 1970s, a turbulent period though, Peng had a very happy and innocent childhood. He got his name Qi from his father, who saw a very unusual dog on the day of his birth. According to his father, the dog looked like a Chinese unicorn which only exists in the Chinese ancient mythology, a very old mythical creature which represents good luck and is thought to be a metaphor of a man who has distinguished talent and posses both ability and morality. Before pre-school, Peng followed all day the folk artisans on the street, such as sugar painters, to see how they were performing on traditional arts. The imagination of ancient Chinese art excited him so much. Since then, he was determined to devote all his life to the art career.

Brought up in a booming culture era in Wuhan, the birthplace of the romantic ancient Chu Culture and historic revolution, Peng bares the exquisite and creative and pioneering genes. Having lived through Culture Revolution and Student Strike as a teenager, Peng acknowledges the vicissitudes of human life as well as the surrounding world very well, which has became the source of his variety series of works. In 1987, he started to learn oil painting formally, and went on to study at the Hubei Academy of Fine Arts in 1992, where he developed an interest in oil painting of the digital era, when the computer and internet were still very new to the Chinese. After he finished his master study in Hubei Academy of Fine Arts, Peng went to Beijing, just like his schoolmate Zeng Fanzhi did, who is a dominated contemporary Asian artist now. Peng obsessively explores and captures the rapidly changing figures of the reality and virtual world in post internet era.

Peng gets inspires from multi-culture of boundless internet worldwide and Chinese ancient thoughts, transferring the surrounding world to imaginary images in his mind that he later expresses on his paintings. His creations emphasize on the imaginary configuration of the illusions and he has successfully created the Flashing Body series, Eidolon series, Dog series, Phoenix series, Mountain Goddess series, Portrait series, Iris series, Bamboo series, Scenery series, and Abstract series. He creates on diversity themes with his own unique language and skills.

Peng is always trying hard to find a new way of contemporary art that bears the characteristics of the age. He combines the traditional oil painting skills with computer technologies and design thoughts, integrating the texture of painting with the features of internet art and digital art.. In terms of color, Peng pursues virtual and photoelectric color effects that are different from the nature colors. In terms of space, he breaks through the three dimensional time-space, entering into a higher one, bringing the traditional culture a feeling of modern science and technology, as well as a feeling of the mysterious universe, as evidenced in his iconic paintings Flashing Body, and Mountain Goddess. Peng’s artworks are exhibited in the art fairs, galleries, museums in the U.S., Europe and South Asian countries. His iconic painting Phoenix is named the Chairman’s award of International Art Competition in Art Revolution Taipei 2012. He lives and works mainly in Beijing, China, works in the U.S., Europe, South Asian periodically.

Tao 2016

Tao 2016