Feng Xiao-Min, Composition n°6.4.23, 2023, Acrylic on canvas, 195 x 130 cm | 76.8 x 51.2 in” width=”970″ height=”1293″ data-caption=’Feng Xiao-Min,<em> Composition n°6.4.23</em>, 2023; acrylic on canvas, 195 x 130 cm | 76.8 x 51.2 in. <span class=”lazyload media-credit”>Courtesy of the artist, Opera Gallery, and © On White Wall</span>’>
Born in Shanghai in 1959 into a family of intellectuals, Feng Xiao-Min began studying Chinese ink painting and calligraphy at an early age. Nearly thirty years later, he moved to Paris to pursue an artistic career. He attended École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Paris and, there, began developing a painting style inspired by both Chinese and French artistic traditions. His abstract yet colorful paintings, adored by individual and institutional collectors alike, create a unique visual impact of tranquility and fluidity on the picture plane.
Feng’s endeavor to develop a style that bridges Chinese and French artistic languages has come a long way. “In my first exhibition, I showed twenty-eight works, but none of them sold. It was hugely frustrating,” Feng told Observer. His ink paintings, when exhibited outside their cultural context, required more mediation to be appreciated by audiences. After that disheartening experience, he spent extensive time reflecting on how his works could speak to the French art background and began pairing the techniques he’d spent years perfecting with new mediums.
According to Feng, instead of pursuing depth in color textures as in European oil paintings, Chinese painting emphasizes the smoothness of brushwork across the picture plane—something European audiences often associate with watercolors. “The pursuit of color effect is something embedded in European art, as the inspiration is everywhere: the unique nature, history or even more quotidian things like the curation of shop windows,” he said. He eventually realized that such depth of color could not be achieved using traditional ink pigments. “I found that the more vibrant and diverse color schemes in oil paintings speak better to the French audience, so I worked to create more visible color effects. My first step was to mount my paintings on Chinese rice paper onto canvases, as paper surfaces are too fragile,” Feng added.
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While experimenting with canvases, Feng considered critically the Chinese ink painting traditions he inherited. “When I was young, we all painted by modeling after painting manuals like the Manual of the Mustard Seed Garden, and thought that it was the best form of painting,” he explained. “However, what it teaches us is a highly stylized way of painting individual motifs that, in a way, limit individual creativity. A painter has to go beyond that, otherwise everyone’s work will end up looking the same.”
There are still elements of Chinese painting that remain more or less intact in Feng’s works. His composition and the proportions of his paintings follow the principles of Chinese calligraphy, especially the treatment of space that is intentionally left blank to create a sense of breadth. The rendering and penetration of colors—and the unique yet sporadic reactions that pigments, water and canvas produce when blending—are signatures Feng has inherited. Abstraction is his answer to the question of how to break away from academic painting traditions.
When viewing Feng’s works, one is reminded of a number of masters, from Chinese landscape painters like Juran to modern Western artists such as J.M.W. Turner or Cézanne. “It’s interesting because these painters happen to be the ones that I love,” Feng said with a laugh. “I always argue that Turner is actually the pioneer of Impressionism, prior to other painters like Monet. Honestly, I’m not too interested in Turner’s early academy paintings, but he had a huge surge of creativity at the end of his life, in which he broke previous concepts and traditions about painting. That is extremely rare for any artist to experience, and I think it comes from a superior realm of relaxation in painting.”
Feng believes that finding one’s own artistic voice is one of the most important things a painter can do. “I don’t think of others’ styles when I paint, as I focus solely on my canvas. However, I am aware that one can be unconsciously influenced by other painters as one surrounds oneself with these works,” he admitted. “I am very alert about that and try not to be encompassed by others’ styles.”
Thanks to his unique abstractions and his contributions to both Chinese and French contemporary art, Feng is often mentioned alongside other Chinese-French abstract painters like Zao Wou-ki or Chu Teh-Chun, with whom he had personal relationships. “People often describe my paintings as bridging Chinese and French art,” Feng said. “I think my style was developed naturally rather than intentionally created. The artistic education and training that one receives live in one’s blood and soul for a lifetime. I’m lucky that these traditions were kept with me and not forgotten.”
Every one of Feng Xiao-Min’s paintings, even those of similar size, takes a different amount of time to complete, and Feng rarely feels fully satisfied with his output. “This subtle process is related to the mood, nature, temperature and sometimes I actually don’t know why,” Feng said, adding that he views presence and absence—and the ability to control the painting process—through a Taoist lens. The time it takes to practice calligraphy and painting is particularly long, and the training lies in the control of the brush. But when it takes too long, it instead becomes difficult to control. Hence, the natural and perfect reflection on the canvas is the balance of yin and yang from a perspective of philosophical relationships.
When asked to comment on the opinion that painting is dead in the contemporary art market, Feng disagrees: “Painting as a field is difficult because there are too many painters out there, and it’s hard for painters to establish themselves. People have been saying that painting is dead for decades, yet painting as a medium has been alive for thousands of years and will remain alive. Sales figures for paintings remain high today.”
This fall, Feng will present a new solo exhibition in Singapore. His shows focus almost exclusively on new paintings and rarely revisit older works. Feng says he no longer titles his works or exhibitions to allow space for imagination. “I used to spend a lot of time thinking about titles, but I realized names might restrict people’s perception of paintings.” He might, he said by way of example, title something as water, but viewers see streets or walking or dancing figures. “It all makes sense after they explain what they see to me, and I’d like to encourage this free imagination and association.”
“Feng Xiao-Min, Sailing Through the Light” is on view at Opera Gallery New York through May 17, 2025.
