QIN XIUPING ｜秦修平

QIN XIUPING (b. 1973)

Representative of China’s dynamic post-70s ink generation, Qin Xiuping has forged an artistic idiom that manages to be simultaneously architectonic and deeply emotive. Holding a PhD from Nanjing University of the Arts and working as a full-time painter at the prestigious Jiangsu Provincial Chinese Painting Institute, he enjoys the rare luxury of complete creative focus.

Qin’s compositions reveal masterful understanding of how structural discipline can serve emotional expression. He begins with sweeping washes that establish monumental landscape silhouettes, then overlays these foundations with precisely controlled calligraphic marks that add both visual tension and conceptual clarity. The resulting images read simultaneously as natural formations and psychological maps, creating paintings that function as bridges between external observation and interior experience.

This synthesis reflects broader questions facing contemporary Chinese artists: how to inherit tradition meaningfully while addressing contemporary concerns. Qin’s solution involves treating historical precedent not as constraint but as foundation, a launching point for explorations that remain culturally grounded while embracing formal innovation. His crystalline mountain forms hover between figuration and abstraction, suggesting both monumental natural phenomena and intimate emotional geography.

Redemption (2013) achieved RMB 1.265 million (~US $180k) at Poly Beijing in 2014, confirming rising market interest in artists who treat tradition as springboard rather than limitation. Qin represents a generation that inherits China’s artistic legacy as resource rather than burden, proving that compelling contemporary work often emerges from deep engagement with historical practice.