CHINESE MASTER ARTIST I-HSIUNG JU

“I think of myself as an educator, not an established artist. My mother once told me that, if you are a taker, you eat very well; but if you are a giver, you sleep very well. I sleep very well — like a baby.”
— I-Hsiung Ju

I-Hsiung Ju was born in 1923 in Jiangyin, Jiangsu, China. He is considered one of a few artists able to blend two worlds of style, technique, and idiom to produce a unique form of painting that is both modern and traditionally Oriental. Ju is famous for saying “a Chinese artist is not only a painter, but also a poet and a philosopher.” He is an author of several painting textbooks and numerous papers on Chinese art. During his life, he did what he loved, creating and teaching painting. A poet and philosopher, his paintings are lessons in living a fulfilled life and appreciation of the majesty of nature. Ju is revered in Taiwan and the Philippines and his works hang in their national museums. I-Hsiung died on March 17, 2012.

The works of I-Hsiung Ju show the refinements and delicate strokes of Chinese calligraphy. The brush strokes demand complete mastery since the artist’s ideas are portrayed immediately with a few strokes. Ju’s brush has a fascinating disciplined freedom; one can see its sure and firm movements accomplishing silk thread-thin lines to luxuriant swaths of ink, creating infinite variation of shapes, and producing different shades and tints in a single stroke.

Ju completed two epic paintings, the 72 foot Ten Thousand Li of the Yangtze and the 45 foot Misty Clouds of Huangshan, both of which will be featured in this exhibition. Additional works of art include: calligraphy and flora and fauna.

A series of sumi-e art demonstrations were also given on the opening weekend of July 31 – August 1 by Michael Kopald, Virginia Lloyd-Davies, Grace Ju Miller, Charlene Fuhrman-Schulz, Carole Yee, and Jamaliah Morais.

On September 12 and 13 Michael Kopald returned to give two more demos, Turner McGehee talked about Prof. Ju’s life. On September 13, Dr. Carolyn Bloomer gave a talk on Chinese calligraphy. On September 26, October 3, and October 16, Homoon Youn, Masako Horino, Carla Jaranson will demonstrate their art. The presenters are of various heritages (Chinese, British, Malay, American, Korean and Japanese) representing the various cultures embracing East Asian ink-wash painting.

SCHEDULE OF EAST ASIAN INK BRUSH DEMONSTRATIONS