Painting with Qi: SHEN Aiqi

仗氣為圖：沈愛其  書畫
PAINTING WITH QI: SHEN Aiqi

Born in 1941 Hubei, Shen Aiqi has been engaged in the exploration of the painting process since his youth, and in the late 1950s was already a dedicated student of great Hubei master Xu Song’an. As the decades passed by he immersed himself in the study of the “six canons” of Chinese art, creating a unique body of work grounded on the training he received under his master’s tutelage, yet very uniquely his own. For many years, Shen Aiqi rarely showed his paintings to others: it was only after he celebrated his 70th birthday that he chose to share his work with the world in a solo exhibition at Wuhan. This has caused a true sensation in art circles and beyond.

Shen Aiqi’s painting is majestic and vibrant, radiating a unique sense of life-force that is tangible to all who come into contact with it. Within his works are contained organic patterns of nature and energy. This is the kind of grandeur that can only arise when the artist merges with sky and earth, mountains and rivers, fusing his life-force with that of nature. For Shen Aiqi, the process of merging with nature and then expressing this oneness through his art is one of the greatest joys of painting.

沈愛其，1941年出生，湖北省孝感市人，上世紀五十年代末師從湖北中國畫家徐松安先生。數十年如一日孜孜矻矻精研“六法”，創作成果充棟，然其謹承師訓，鮮少以作品示人，七秩以後方在湖北，武漢等地舉辦個展，引起圈內外轟動。2011年 受邀參加武漢美術館主辦的“態：沈愛其畫展”。他的畫大氣磅礴，能讓觀眾感受到其獨特的生命境界、生命格局和獨特的生命氣象。這種“大”通常是畫家把自己 和天地、山川聯結在一起結果，愛其畫畫就是把生命與自然融匯在一起，作總體上的表達。將藝術和自己的生命狀態結合在一起可說是沈愛其現代山水畫藝術的最大 特點。