How far does it go from a girl from a mountain village in Fujian who only went to school for five years, to a working girl from Beijing who started to learn painting at the age of 30, to become a well-known artist?
Wang Hua used her counterattack in life to prove: Anyone who has a dream is great!
Wang Hua was born in a small mountain village in Pucheng County, Nanping, Fujian Province in 1981. He only attended the fifth grade of elementary school before he dropped out of school because he could not read.
At the age of 16, she began to work across the country to make a living. After changing many jobs, Wang Hua once fell into confusion and did not know what she could do. Returning to her home in the countryside, she felt even more at a loss as to what to do and felt that she "could not find an outlet for life." Wang Hua was also upset by her parents' forced marriage. She could understand the old man's mood, but she insisted, "Relationships are about fate. You can't rush into a marriage and just marry the person you catch."
Until One day, Wang Hua saw the "New York School of Photography Photography Textbook" on a street stall. On a whim, Wang Hua started drawing the picture of the modern woman in the book. "The girl in the photo is very fresh and elegant, just like the heroine of the movie "Roman Holiday". But why do I feel that my painting is more beautiful than the photo itself? I have never had this feeling of free writing. "And when she was painting, the world that had seemed a bit gloomy in her eyes seemed to become sparkling! From then on it was out of control.
In this way, the 30-year-old Wang Hua began to use his brush to outline a world of black and white lines to vent his inner depression.
Gradually, she realized the beauty of painting - it turned out that she could express her inner feelings directly and quickly with a paintbrush. This pleasure was beyond description in words.
In 2001, Wang Hua came to Shanghai alone. She stayed in an art exhibition hall run by a certain company for several hours. And this neurotic enthusiasm gave Wang Hua the opportunity to work in this art museum!
Wang Hua said that in fact, she didn’t know what art was at first. A colleague told her: “Art has no boundaries. Just insist on painting what you want and do it to the extreme.”
After that, she began to try to create long scroll paintings. The refill Wang Hua uses for painting is an oil-based pen that costs 50 cents each and is 0.5 mm thin. Every day after get off work, she would spread the 15-meter-long drawing paper in the corridor of the art museum, lie on the ground and immerse herself in painting. Watching a flower, a gust of wind, and a sea pour out of his painting, Wang Huaneng felt an indescribable joy and satisfaction.
In 2012, Wang Hua came to Beijing. She often visited the Central Academy of Fine Arts. In order to maintain her life as a drifter in Beijing, Wang Hua approached the cafeteria manager of the Central Academy of Fine Arts and said: "I want to find a job, which only provides food and accommodation, and no salary. I just want to stay here." "Because of her previous experience as a waitress, the manager kept her. But she said she could only work half a day because she had to spend the rest of the time painting. The manager also agreed and asked her to be responsible for serving dishes and cleaning, with a monthly salary of only 1,000 yuan.
Wang Hua rented a 10-square-meter room in a simple basement near the Academy of Fine Arts. He got up at 5:30 every morning, finished his work, and then had his own time. He wiped the canteen table and finished school. The classroom at the back became a place where she could draw to her heart's content.
With a monthly salary of 1,000 yuan, in addition to rent, he also has to buy brushes and paper, making Wang Hua's life very difficult. But painting always makes her put all these things behind her. It takes a whole year to paint a 30-meter-long painting. But she just painted one after another... When she wasn't working during the holidays, she could paint from early morning until late at night.
Wang Hua also likes to attend professional courses and famous lectures at school, and takes notes more seriously than anyone else. "Here I found *** Ming. Although it is difficult and lonely to wander alone in the capital, the deepest feeling in my heart is satisfaction."
What attracts Wang Hua the most is the books of CAFA Although she didn’t know any of the characters in scriptures, oracle bones, or Mayan characters, she liked the structure and lines of the characters. She read and practiced in her notebook, copying it a dozen times a day.
She can read books on sculpture, philosophy, politics, and art with gusto, as well as picture albums of different styles and contents with the help of dictionaries. Then use your own methods to train your vision, convert the materials you collect from books and life into gorgeous line drawings, and express them with heart and hand.
By chance, a student took Wang Hua to see Yuan Yunsheng, a professor at the Central Academy of Fine Arts. The old artist stared at her paintings for a long time, and only slowly spoke after finishing smoking the cigarette in his hand, He said that he had never met such a unique student in all his years of teaching.
Wang Hua burst into tears suddenly, muttering all the time: Thank you, thank you. She never thought that the painting she loved, and the casual graffiti in the eyes of others, would be recognized by the master.
In the spring of 2013, Zhang Nan from CCTV heard about the news that a waiter at the Central Food Hall was painting, so he approached Wang Hua to make a documentary. Later, this film called "My Lifeline" won the French Sunshine Documentary Award for Best Nomination! Zhang Nan said:
In June 2015, a student saw Wang Hua drawing on the dining table in the cafeteria. He couldn't help but take a picture of her work with his mobile phone, and casually posted a Weibo post: "Central There is a beautiful lady waiter on the second floor of the Meiyi Canteen. She graduated from elementary school and has never taken any art classes, but she can draw such good paintings that even a major like me would be ashamed.”
Wang Hua is unique. Although his line drawing is an innovative painting method that is unique at home and abroad, behind his majestic and vigorous artistic style, there is also a shadow of being influenced by the "Central American School", which is the so-called "close to the water". She knows how to use large sizes, complex textures, and smart and changeable decorative lines... Netizens are amazed by this. In just a few days, this Weibo post was retweeted 60,000 to 70,000 times, and Wang Hua became a popular "Inspirational Sister of CAFA" on the Internet.
Later, some people expressed their willingness to provide venues so that Wang Huaneng could have a better painting environment; some people wanted to help her hold an art exhibition and have her works included in the album. And the Beijing Museum of Modern Art wants to collect a painting by her "amateur painter" for a high price of 150,000 yuan! Wang Hua's first reaction was to refuse. "She said,
Wang Hua has always resisted the commercialization of art, even though her life is very depressed. For several years, she has been renting a basement of less than 10 square meters and immersed herself in painting.
Even though life is so difficult, Wang Hua still refuses the opportunity to hold exhibitions and sell paintings. Friends and fellow villagers say she is pedantic, but Wang Hua feels that she needs a breakthrough in artistic concepts more than improvement in economic conditions.
As early as a few years ago, because she was unable to establish a career, her parents placed their expectations on her to start a family. Her family had arranged for her to get married to a wealthy gambler from a neighboring village. When the wedding day was approaching, Wang Hua fled in a hurry and went to work elsewhere.
In early 2016, her father was ill and hospitalized, so she had to sell a few paintings and take all the money back home. Sorry for the institution that collects her paintings: “I always feel that those works are not perfect enough. "But a famous art critic said that Wang Hua's works are full of chaotic atmosphere and religious aesthetic elements. Those lines have no starting point and no end, which are very similar to the various aspects of life.
April 2016, Beijing An art gallery finally discovered Wang Hua, an "amateur painter with great potential", and transformed her from a part-time worker in the cafeteria to a contracted artist. In June, curator Liu Yi brought Wang Hua's long scroll works to the 798 Amateur Art Group. After the exhibition, the company held another solo exhibition for her, and 17 paintings were sold in two exhibitions, bringing hundreds of thousands of yuan in profits to Wang Hua, but she donated 200,000 yuan of them to Beijing. An art foundation. Wang Hua said that many Chinese artists and teachers and students of the Academy of Fine Arts have nourished themselves with culture and knowledge, and she also wants to give back to the society.
Now, Wang Hua, who is a contracted painter, spends every morning. Appearing in the art gallery at 10 o'clock, accompanied by the aroma of coffee and soft music, she creates "line drawings" that only she can do in the world. She lays down the paper and holds the pen, and the lines pour out from the pen, as natural as walking and breathing. , or ups and downs, or turbulent, or as calm as water, as if the whole world is under her pen. "
When I paint, I am my own queen, and I feel very happy.
"She said with a smile.
From a working girl in the cafeteria to a shining female artist, Wang Hua did not attribute her life changes to talent. She said: