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Artist Profile
Guan XinRan

Guan Xinran, born in Beijing in 1992, now lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. She holds a bachelor's degree in Art and Engineering from Bard College and Columbia University and a master of Arts in Painting from Maryland Institute of Art.

Guan Xinran's works are mainly non-figurative paintings. The individual's perception, thinking and imagination of life are combined with the capture of light and color overlay to construct a spiritual world of strange light and shadows. Here, she freely expresses the beauty of nature, the magic of life, and the complexity and contradiction everywhere. Here, the conflict of duality is reconciled; Growth and decay, beauty and ugliness, joy and sorrow make up a harmonious perfection. Here is the refraction of reality, and beyond the shackles of reality, not an escape, but a sincere blessing to the world. Guan Xinran's works make a bold attempt to combine Chinese and Western art. Influenced by Chinese tragic beauty, she creates a unique visual effect and psychological experience of light and space with color.

In 2017, her works were selected by Today Art Museum "The Fourth Chinese Oil Painting Exhibition -- Chinese Spirit (Non-figurative Part)". In the past three years, she has been invited to participate in the opening exhibition of "Zheng De Art Gallery New York", "Wind and Sea Art Exhibition" of Baltimore City Hall, "Young Asian Artists Group Exhibition" of Korean Culture Association in New York. In 2020, Guan Xinran's solo exhibition, You are the Lightning on the Other side, was held in Qiaoshe Gallery, Beijing. In 2020, her works "Mountain and Sea" and "The Keeper" were collected by Capital One Financial Corp.

"Let the world understand Chinese culture."
-- Guan Xinran, a post-90s oil painter, and her Oriental tragic aesthetics

"The process of creating art is painful because it requires you to expose yourself at your most vulnerable and confront what your subconscious doesn't want to face."
-- Guan Xinran

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Innate Artistic Talent

Guan Xinran is a talented young woman and a female painter in a new generation. Her love for art is firm and persistent, and she has an innate eye for art.

When more than a year old, Guan Xinran could draw smooth and complete faces on paper with a pen. She could draw different portraits wherever she could write, whether in newspapers or textbooks. To protect Guan's unique spirituality, her family didn't let her learn sketching at first, concerning it would limit her imagination.

Night Wish
48 x108 inches oil on canvas 2019

Then Guan Xinran learned to play the piano, but she was always confident in her paintings and still loved painting. Of course, Guan Xinran's experience of learning the piano is not entirely useless for her artistic cultivation of paintings. Many pictures come to her mind with the melody of music, forming a space that does not exist and developing an immediate desire to paint what she imagines in her mind.

Untitled
60 x72 inches oil on canvas 2019

In 2011, she was 19, the night before Guan Xinran set out to study in the United States, she told her mother that her biggest regret was that she didn't learn the art. This obsession makes Guan Xinran's life path destined not to be extended in the established direction. After many twists and turns, she finally chooses the road of art and runs forward unswervingly.

In 2020, Guan Xinran's works were exhibited at the 25th Guangzhou Art Fair.

From 2011 to 2016, Guan studied studio Art at Bard College and Operations Research at Columbia University School of Engineering and received a double degree in Art and Engineering in 2016. After graduation, Guan talked about art with her mother again. This time, she told her mother, "I can only find myself in painting." Guan Xinran's resolute attitude towards art is unshakeable. So far, her family has no hesitation in letting her pursue her dream freely.

Guan Xinran graduated from Columbia University

In 2019, Guan received her MFA degree from the Maryland Institute of Art. During this period of study, Guan Xinran's works were selected into the "Chinese Spirit - the Fourth Chinese Oil Painting Exhibition (Section 3) Abstract - Contemporary Chinese Non-figurative Oil Painting Exhibition", and his artistic talent and strength were gradually recognized.

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Chinese Tragedy Aesthetics

Guan Xinran has conveyed to the outside world that her works are presented as an aesthetic experience of Chinese tragedy. But what she calls a "Chinese-style tragedy" may not be understood by everyone.

Tragedy has different meanings and interpretations in different cultures and civilizations. Western tragedy, grand, divine, with the misfortune and the trick of fate, and in a dominant posture away from human beings; Chinese tragedy, on the other hand, is only a true manifestation of the other side of daily life, separation and death, love, hate, hatred, delusion. It is the sublimation of people's life experience, a part of life and constitutes life and a more distinct presentation of good and evil.

You are the Lightning on the other side 1

60x72 inch oil on canvas 2019

You are the Lightning on the other side 2
60x72 inch oil on canvas 2019

The tragic aesthetics created by Guan Xinran is actually a process of her struggle, reflection, and finally dissolution and acceptance in her life experience. She expresses those feelings and pain through drops of color and brush strokes, but in a gentle and elegant way.

For example, in the works "The Mist", fog stands between the spiritual and the material worlds, preventing us from reaching the truth, becoming an insurmountable obstacle between the saints and the ordinary, and creating unsolvable suffering. At the same time, fog also makes the holy more sacred and makes the other more attractive.

The Mist
72 x 96 inch, oil on canvas, 2019

"Tragedy is never just negative, and it is an integral part of a perfect life, and therefore perfect. Just like laughter and tears always go together, you can't feel the light without knowing the darkness. To me, gentle handling is a determination to accept reality and have the courage to dance with it."
- Guan Xinran

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Let the World Understand Chinese Culture

Guan hopes to spread Chinese culture in a way that the world can understand. Although the expression form of her paintings is western abstract and non-concrete language, its core is always the soul of China. During her study in the United States, her teacher commented that her paintings were pure and had strong Oriental elements.

Both the inner emotion expression of Chinese tragedy in her pictures and the external brushwork expression of writing and spirit are characterized by distinct and implicit Oriental aesthetic thoughts. Guan Xinran is indeed fascinated by Chinese culture. She obtains creative sources from Bada Shanren, Mu Xi, and The Book of Mountains and Seas, and explores in Chinese poetry, constantly making new attempts to her own artistic language.

The Emperor of Popsicle
48X60 inch oil on canvas 2017

"Western oil painting is my favorite medium, and I'm good at it, while eastern philosophical and aesthetic thoughts have built my world outlook and ideological basis. I don't want to simply use oil mediums to draw Chinese paintings, nor do I want to combine the two at a superficial level. Although my understanding of Oriental aesthetics is just beginning, I want to create contemporary artworks that use the media techniques of oil painting to express Oriental aesthetic ideas and artistic conception."

Snow Day
36X48 inch oil on canvas 2019

As a young artist from China, Guan Xinran has vivid creativity and talent, as well as a lofty patriotic mission. When interests and feelings are closely aligned, and pursuit and loyalty remain constant, her life is bound to release a brilliant and dazzling light.