Workshop Article

The article that I wrote for American Artist's Workshop magazine can be found in the Summer Edition, or a shorter version may be viewed on line by clicking here. I really love to write and Qiang is such an interesting person, the article kind of wrote itself in many ways. It just took awhile to get it onto paper!

As I was interviewing him, I couldn't help but reflect on how often Qiang, a representational painter, focuses on abstract qualities of artwork. It's interesting when one remembers how China and Russia, in their curtained cultures, were uninfluenced by modern and post-modern art. Western art advanced and experimented, pushing the envelope of creativity to remarkable lengths. Old-fashioned, academic art training is, ironically, scant in the western art schools of the last century, giving birth to the explosion of representational painting workshops. It did, however, survive in the schools of countries where creative artistic experimentation was not encouraged. Qiang was not exposed to abstract art at all, until he came to the US. He now incorporates it into every facet of his representational paintings. Someday he hopes to return to China to learn what they have saved and share what he has learned.

I hope you get a copy of the magazine because there are many side-bars and a demo + student critiques and samples of Qiang's artwork. It's worth a peek.