Liu Guofu 劉國夫

Liu Guofu was born in 1964 in Nanjing, and graduated from the Oil Painting Department of the Nanjing Institute of Arts in 1985. He currently lives and works in Nanjing. 

His artwork melds motions of light with air. While “light” brings out its depth, “air” helps disperse the “light” to every corner of the work. His symbolic blue-greyish colour is fundamental to his works. Up close, the brushstrokes are chaotic and fragmented, yet from a distance the brushstrokes gather to form a poetic tranquillity.

Liu Guofu has held various major solo exhibitions in Shanghai Art Museum (Shanghai, Today Art Museum (Beijing) and Jiangsu Provincial Art Museum (Nanjing). His paintings were widely collected by private and institutional collectors, such as MGM Chairman’s Collection (Macau), Shanghai Art Museum and Jiangsu Provincial Art Museum (Nanjing).  

In 2016, Liu Guofu was honoured by renowned French brand Martell as Martell Artist of the Year in Hong Kong.

Dr. Xia Kejun, acclaimed philosopher and art critic, once described Liu Guofu’s oil paintings as a magical spectacle: ‘Among Chinese contemporary oil painters, I have yet to see a single one who is so richly imbued with the dejected and pessimistic qualities of modernity, or can convey the lofty desolation of Shan Shui landscape painting with such clear form and spiritual power. This is truly an “otherworldly landscape”, the most magical spectacle of the soul.’