Shanghai-based artist Jiang Qionger's ongoing photography and art exhibition combines the restrained traditions of Chinese painting with the nation's contemporary verve and vitality, writes Wu Yingying with the Shanghai Daily.

Desire, dynamic, dedication, detail, dialogue, discovery, decoration, drawing, different, destiny and, finally, design -- these are some of the words Jiang Qionger uses to define her Number D Gallery on Shanghai's Xikang Road.

They could also stand for her own career and involvement with art.

Jiang is now presiding over a photography and painting exhibition called "L'encre et le rouge" ("Ink and Red") which is running at Shanghai's Duolun Museum of Modern Art and also at La Maison de la Chine in Paris. It is her second two-city (Shanghai-Paris) exhibition after her first in 2002.

"Ink and Red" are also symbols of China. "Ink" stands for the old world of traditional China with its reference to Chinese calligraphy and "Red," the national color, stands for passion.

Jiang, who is also an interior decorator and an award-winning furniture and jewelry designer, has never stopped in her pursuit of having a career connected with painting.

"I started to learn painting at the age of two. My brother and I won a lot of awards when we were little," Jiang says.

Born in Shanghai, Jiang grew up in an artistic family. Her grandfather belonged to the first generation of Chinese painters to study abroad where he was inspired by Western art techniques. Her father, Xing Tonghe, is the architect of the Shanghai Museum. 

"I come from a very traditional artistic background. I was a student of the renowned painter Cheng Shifa and the calligrapher Han Tianheng, two masters of traditional Chinese art," she says.

Instead of following her father -- and her brother -- and becoming an architect, Jiang went to Tongji University to study design. To enrich her style she went to Paris where she enrolled in the Decorative Arts School.

Jiang says that during her three years in France, she did find inspiration in Western art. With Chinese culture in her blood and French influences in her mind, Jiang began to mix contemporary and traditional techniques.

Jiang says she combines Chinese traditional ink-wash painting with Western photographic techniques. "The essence of ink-wash painting is the tone (yun) -- vague and clear, false and true -- and this is what the camera can never catch. However, the ability of photography to present light is marvelous," she says.

So Jiang invites the light captured by the camera to link with the ink of her Chinese roots. She "paints" flowers, plants and views of Shanghai at night but in new and unexpected ways.

As a designer with a French firm of architects and designers, Jiang paints simply for her personal satisfaction and not to make a living.

"So when I paint, I don't have any limits or boundaries. I don't need to follow any commercial trend."

Her photographic collection would puzzle just about any viewer. The totally abstract black-and-white shadows do not even look like photography.

Like her abstract photographic works, Jiang's paintings have the same look as those done with splashed ink, a typical technique used in ink-wash paintings.

Black and red are now Jiang's favorite colors and they have become the signature colors of her dress style which is distinctive and elegant and reveals her identity as an artist.

Various colors

When looking for light in her oil paintings Jiang also uses gold and silver, interesting colors that change with the light.

Then there are some paintings featuring yellow, blue, green, orange and gray to demonstrate the relationship between lines and space.

"I was inspired by various colors in different periods. Sometimes, I focus on red, sometimes yellow, sometimes green," she says. "I accumulate energy and passion and I start to paint when inspiration is at its peak. Then the volcano erupts. I can't stop painting for days and nights until everything is finished. It's just like I have conceived and had a baby. I am completely drained and empty the moment I step out of the studio."

Jiang's multi-talents have won her many awards for her furniture and jewelry designs and for other artworks at exhibitions in Milan, Paris, Hong Kong and Shanghai.

In 2005, Jiang was invited to be the first Chinese designer to exhibit at the Furniture Fair of Paris while she also had a solo exhibition of contemporary furniture running at another Parisian gallery and a collection of her jewelry was on display in the Pompidou Center.

In 2004, the Palais des Nations of the United Nation in Geneva collected four of Jiang's paintings after an exhibition of her art and photographic works there.

"Even if people don't understand the techniques of ink-wash painting, they will feel the energy and the power of my works," she says. "I focus on the expression of personal emotions. That's the essence of art: You have to move the audience."

There seems to be no end to Jiang's creativity. "I'm practicing art in many dimensions. They don't interfere with one another but stimulate and arouse more inspiration. The best inspiration for painting never stems from painting itself but maybe from love, music and other people."

Jiang has the typical romantic outlook of an artist. "I was born for art. If one day my inspiration drains away, my life ends too. I feel so strongly about this," she says.

Date: through January 15, 10AM-6PM

Address: 27 Duolun Rd. Shanghai

Admission: 10 yuan

Tel: 86-021-62994289

(Shanghai Daily January 9, 2006)