About

Guo Xianzhong, born in Huayang, Sichuan, China, 1941, is now resident in Chongqing, China. Mr. Guo is famous for his unique and revolutionary style of combining Western and Chinese painting techniques in his artworks, with a great variety of genres and full of life and freedom.

In his early works, he painted the inland landscapes of South-west China with emphasis on brush techniques and ink use. Expressing his personal emotions, he used very free and natural strokes to depict the vitality and mysteriousness of the part of China he was from and became a master of Chinese painting in 1980s. He was one of the top painters in South-west China then.

Between 1987 and 2000, he was invited to hold his solo art exhibitions at the Fine Arts Department of South-west University, Sichuan Fine Arts Institute, Shandong Qingdao Art Gallery, Henan Provincial Museum, Sichuan Fine Arts Association and Taiwan Kaohsiung Municipal Social Education Hall. Between 16 and 20 October 2012, he held a solo art exhibition at Chongqing China Three Gorges Museum. Most recently, Mr. Guo held a solo art exhibition at Hainan Province Museum in October 2015. This exhibition was named “Hainan Yi Xiang” (Impressions on Hainan) and all paintings on display featured around landscapes of this beautiful tropical island of China.

In early 1990s, Mr. Guo travelled to Hainan Island to pursue further inspirations. The tropical island’s relaxing and passionate atmosphere and its gaudy and grotesque hues under strong sunlight seemed to have wakened another homeland deep in his soul. Since then, his painting style went through a major change. He began to present his artwork in a more deviant and unruly fashion, combining black ink and colors, using bright hues and striking contrast and adopting no rules to completely showcase the infinite vigor and passion of both the tropical island and himself.

A new path was then created to paint tropical sceneries in the traditional Chinese painting form, which was never done before.

He was a visiting lecturer at the Department of Traditional Chinese Painting of Sichuan Fine Arts Institute in 1989 and deputy secretary-general at Chongqing Traditional Chinese Painting Academy in 1990. Since 1995, he has been working at Chongqing Chinese National Culture Promotion Association to promote traditional Chinese paintings and calligraphy. He detached himself from all societies and associations after 2000.

Besides specializing in landscape painting, he paints animals, flowers and plants, and figures.

Mr. Guo’s paintings have been exhibited at many Chinese art galleries, and in other countries such as the United States, Japan, Canada, the Philippines and Taiwan. His works have also been published in various magazines, newspapers and painting albums, such as Jiangsu Pictorial, An Album of Modern Landscape Paintings and A Fine Selection of Guo Xianzhong’s Modern Landscape and so on.