NYU Shanghai’s first student artwork exhibition, Art in Translation, was held on December 4, 2014 in the first floor exhibition hall, where Associate Vice Chancellor Hongxia Liu and curators, Clinical Assistant Arts Professors Barbara Edelstein and Jian-Jun Zhang, joined students for the opening.
Professors Edelstein and Zhang, who teach "Projects in Studio Art: China" and "Introduction to Studio Art: China" provide an ideal setting for students to develop Western-style painting techniques alongside Chinese ink painting and calligraphy techniques. The blended exposure to multiple styles has proven to inspire unique student work.
Nicholas Andrew Sanchez, a sophomore student showcasing an ink portrait of a recumbent nude, said he initially had no foundation in Chinese painting styles. Over the course of the semester, he pursued Chinese ink painting and calligraphy, gradually building his skills and understanding of light and heavy brush strokes, using line to evoke a sense of fluidity in his work. Sanchez says he has developed a strong interest in Chinese painting styles—the careful realism of Gongbi technique being his favorite—and will further practice and explore them.
Another student, Rebecca Grinberg, stated that her ink painting Rabbit was inspired both from the American supernatural drama film Donnie Darko and an idiom her Chinese roommate taught her: "兔子不吃窝边草." When translated, its meanings is: "A rabbit does not eat the grass near its own home," or "A wise rabbit will never rob his neighbor's henroost." She drew correlations between aspects of the film and the idiom, discovering a cross-cultural connection between different artistic mediums. Grinberg's ink composition consisted of a rabbit’s head in a style that mimicked the film’s rabbit mask motif, with the Chinese idiom alongside it in neat strokes of calligraphy.
Associate Vice Chancellor Hongxia Liu acknowledged the exhibition as a great accomplishment of active teaching. The exhibition not only started an art space at NYU Shanghai, but also showed another side of NYU Shanghai as a research university. Here, there is a respect for creative inspiration and passion for the arts, cultivating students to make art a lifelong interest.
Photos by Rhine Lu