BARCELONA, Spain, Sept. 21 (Xinhua) -- Barcelona's European Museum of Modern Art (MEAM) currently hosts contemporary Chinese painter Liu Chun's first exhibition outside her home country. The title of the event described her as a "Pioneer of Chinese Fauvism-Expressionism."
Running until Sept. 30, the exhibition examines Liu's works through a series of comparisons with Chinese and Western masters to show how she has fused elements of traditional Chinese and Western painting in a bold and expressionistic artistic style.
"Through cultural exchanges, we can promote friendship between the Chinese and Spanish peoples and deepen their mutual understanding," she told Xinhua on Wednesday at the opening of the exhibition.
Since she began her artistic career in 2000, Liu has won a number of awards in China.
"We think Liu Chun, through her style and her works, produces paintings of significant quality and with great projection. We know that in the future we're going to hear her name a lot in the world of art and painting," MEAM Director Jose Enrique Gonzalez told Xinhua.
A self-taught artist, Liu's lack of formal artistic training means that she has developed her own personal style based on an expressionistic use of color to depict the beauty and purity of nature.
"She paints what she feels and how she feels it, which implies that it's very temperamental painting, very driven, and that's why her painting expresses itself, based on brush strokes, as very agitated painting, very busy painting, it is very vital painting," said Domenec Corbella, professor emeritus at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Barcelona.
Liu's incorporation of elements of expressionism and fauvism in her technique has created a body of work that transcends cultural borders.
"Many years ago, Eastern art influenced European art and the Impressionists, and now Western European art is also logically influencing Eastern art because we live in an interrelated world and art is universal," Carmen Jimenez, former general manager of the Picasso museum house in La Coruna, told Xinhua.
Coinciding with the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and Spain, and the China-Spain Year of Culture and Tourism, the MEAM said that the exhibition aims to inspire artists to explore the fusing of Eastern and Western artistic traditions. ■
