BIO
Litao Qi (齐利涛) was born in Chengdu Village, Hubei Province, China in 1970, during the Cultural Revolution. She was born to parents who migrated there from Shandong at the start of the movement— when they initially answered the government’s call “Up to the Mountains and Down to the Countryside”. The entire family suffered tremendously during the decade-long sociopolitical turmoil as Qi’s grandfather was a relatively wealthy farmer, even though his wealth was earned honestly. Influenced by her father who was talented in painting, Qi loved to paint since she was young. She grew up in the fields and mountains without much interference from other people, such intimacy to nature shaped her longing for purity and spirituality. She went to a local art college in Hubei and became a professor there upon graduating, which she stayed for 10 years; however, foreseeing how she would spend the rest of her life if she stayed there, she left her teaching job for Beijing, where she worked in the corporate world. This helped her learn more about humanity from another perspective, as she experienced intense office politics. After five years, she left the job after creating a phenomenal revenue increase for the company yet was uncredited due to management staff turnover, as well as to take care of her son when he underwent the college entrance exam preparation (considered the most important life event for Chinese kids). She suffered an episode of cancer during this time, but fortunately recovered. Qi’s artistic career, though started early at a young age, had not started professionally until 2014. She primarily works in the medium of ink on paper, with a few series in acrylic on canvas. Her motif has been surrounding the relationship of man and nature, as she paints women figures, still life, nature; but essentially, it’s about the vitality of life. She paints from her mind, her feelings and emotions, her reflections in life, and never about figuration as is. In this interview, Qi took us into her memories from childhood that were fueled with her love for and relationship with nature, her traumatic experiences of the Cultural Revolution, her experiences with the trajectory of her life from teaching to her corporate job experience, and how she returned to painting. She shared a number of her own perspectives about the issues with art education in China, the relationship of contemporary ink art with traditional Chinese ink paintings as well as the Western art history, the future of Chinese contemporary art, and others.