Ye Xue

Ye Xue is a contemporary artist whose work draws on both the Buddhist tradition of his native China and the abstractions of Western modernism.

Born, in 1962 at Shaanxi, on the banks of the Yellow River, in northwestern China, he has a rich artistic heritage. His grandparents were noted folk-artists in the region, and from a young age he was exposed to a wide spectrum of traditional art-forms, from paper-cutting and stone-carving to animal-skin puppets and embroidery.

He trained at the prestigious Xi'An Academy of Fine Arts, in the provincial capital, where he rebelled against the orthodox Confucian painting-style, and developed an interest in the Western abstract tradition, and a particular passion for the works of Mark Rothko

After graduation he travelled extensively in Gansu Province, and spent time at the Mogao Caves, with their myriad Buddhist shrines and temples. His deep study of the paintings there became the foundation for his artistic practice and the guiding principle of his spiritual life. (For Ye Xue painting and meditation are ‘aligned conditions.’)
 
Using Oriental and Occidental painting techniques and media in daring
synthesis, Ye Xue creates allusive abstract images of great formal elegance and restrained power. To achieve his effects, he uses ink-wash, collage, oil paint, acrylic, frottage, and mono-print - sometimes all on the same picture.

The results resonate with a quiet yet undeniable spiritual force. Ye Xue’s paintings contain always the suggestion of landscape, with its banded boundaries of land, and water and sky. But they draw the viewer beyond the particular into a contemplation of our place in the world, our interaction with the environment, the inter-connectedness of all things, and – even - the journey toward enlightenment. 

Ye Xue is currently based in Beijing. His work has been exhibited extensively around the world: in China, Japan, Europe, Australia and the United States, and is held in private collections internationally.