Bio

Yanqing Pei works with the idea that everything exists as one simultaneously while being connected to something else independently in her paintings. Her practice is an exploration of the intimate symbiotic relationship between human beings and their surroundings with the focus on nature, as well as imaginations of poetic spaces derived from narrative contexts composed of Chinese ideographic characters. Pei’s pictorial vision is a chaotic yet harmonious representation of human communication, both with each other and the world around us.  

Pei graduated with her BFA and MFA in Chinese Painting in 2014 and 2017 from China Academy of Art, and her MFA in Painting and Drawing in 2021 from Pratt Institute. Pei's work has been exhibited in Hangzhou, Nanjing, Dunkirk and New York. She is currently working and living in Brooklyn, New York.

www.yanqingpei.com

Original Painting by Yanqing Pei

Artist Statement

My paintings are about the intimacy and integration between human beings and their surroundings with the focus on nature. I’m interested in how living beings are interconnected and interdependent in a complex and chaotic whole. Separate entities are somehow entangled with something other than themselves.  

A being's energy and sources seem to echo with something ambiguous and mysterious from its otherness, sparking the fascination of the unknown and irregularity. The paintings capture a meditative ambience where different interactions are happening: human figures, mountains, stones, plants and animals form a symbiotic relationship—the outline of a figure turns into a ridge line, or extends to grow into the shape of a horse; a concrete form changes into a cloud-like mass or spreads out in parts, mingling with the others.  

In the last two years, I’ve been also working on a new series of abstract landscape paintings shaped into being with Chinese ideograms. Most of my inspirations come from classical Chinese poetry that expresses thoughts, feelings and attitudes through natural objects and scenes in a syntactic flexibility. They contain an abundance of imagery and metaphors, and often convey a spirit of introspection. I’m interested in the pictorial nature of Chinese ideographic characters, and how it stimulates imagination in its own way.  There comes some connection between poetry and poetic imagination, and between Chinese ideographic characters and the negative space. I reshape some ideographic characters in the form of calligraphy, and transform them into pictorial visions. The written contexts become illegible marks and blend in with other layers of elements on the paintings.  

Original Painting by Yanqing Pei
Original Painting by Yanqing Pei
Original Painting by Yanqing Pei
Original Painting by Yanqing Pei
Original Painting by Yanqing Pei
Original Painting by Yanqing Pei
Original Painting by Yanqing Pei
Original Painting by Yanqing Pei