"Silk Road" is a theme that Yang Xiaoyang has often painted and often updated in his creative career. Recently, he said in an interview with reporters: His previous creations, based on his understanding of the Silk Road and the history of the Silk Road, were basically depicted towards "big events", "big times" and "big people". However, in the process of describing these historical stories, we are experiencing the modern life of the Silk Road every moment.
He said that although every country has its own history and culture, various stories in its history in the Silk Road exchanges, and even some significant events, the daily life of the Silk Road that we have personally experienced is actually the most vivid, vivid and attractive.
Yang Xiaoyang was born in Xi'an, where the Silk Road began. Forty years ago, when he was a young man, he rode a bicycle from Xi'an and traveled along the Silk Road to Xinjiang, investigating, sketching, and recording along the way, and personally felt the historical changes along the Silk Road. Since then, he has formed an indissoluble bond with the Silk Road. From Xi'an to Rome, he traveled all over the countries along the Silk Road, creating a large number of works that express the history, culture and ethnic customs of the Silk Road. Therefore, some people believe that Yang Xiaoyang's personality, works, and artistic outlook can be regarded as the products of the Silk Road culture. For other artists, the Silk Road is just a piece of civilization or a fascinating subject, but for him it is all about it.
On October 29, 2016, the "Silk Road - From Realism to Freehand" Yang Xiaoyang Art Exhibition opened at the National Art Museum of China. The exhibition showcased 350 works by Yang Xiaoyang on the Silk Road, including sketches, theme creations, heavy color paintings, ink paintings, etc., which illustrated the cultural meaning of the Silk Road from multiple angles, and also demonstrated his serious and serious spirit of exploration and solid and comprehensive painting skills. Since then, the exhibition has been exhibited in Guangzhou, Lanzhou, Jinan, Nanjing, Chongqing, Chengdu, Xi'an, Zhengzhou, Guilin and other provinces and cities, and has been widely praised by the audience and the art world. Many viewers also took this opportunity to learn more about his creation and even his life.
Seven years ago, he said at the opening ceremony of the exhibition held at the National Art Museum of China: "In more than 30 years of exploration, I have gradually realized that in the context of Chinese civilization, the core philosophical issue is "yin and yang", and "yin and yang" is black and white. A theorist commented that my creation conforms to the law of "starting and turning together"—from sketching and going deep into life, "inheriting" is the creation of theme paintings, "turning" is heavy color painting, and finally "combining" is ink painting that integrates nature and man.
On November 26, 2023, also in the exhibition hall of the National Art Museum of China, we were fortunate to see Yang Xiaoyang's new work depicting the Silk Road - "Life on the Silk Road". According to him, there are actually 20 works in this group, and two of them have been selected for this exhibition. He said that the Silk Road is rich and colorful, in the history of more than 2,000 years, people of different nationalities and countries have been constantly interacting, in culture, economy, and all aspects have produced a wealth of painting themes, and depicting the ordinary life of the little people on the Silk Road, I have been very interested in the past few years. Because every day he interacts with people of different nationalities and countries, they have different historical and cultural backgrounds, his resources are also different, and his painting style is even more colorful. In the process of communication, I not only learned history, but also felt their current life.
Yang Xiaoyang said that in the process of communication, culture is a very important carrier, it is a bond, enhance feelings, enhance understanding, enhance unity. As a nation, as a country, in the process of economic development, exchanges are very frequent, but in the end, what we are most interested in, what we create is the easiest to start, and the easiest thing to get started with is culture. Therefore, in recent years, I have been very interested in depicting the lives of ordinary people along the Silk Road.
From "Great Art", "Great Freehand", "Great Beauty as the True Freehand Spirit" to today's "Ordinary Life of Little People on the Silk Road", we can see from his latest exhibition "Life on the Silk Road" that he not only grasped many details, but also the details of history, life, and creation, ......Moreover, in terms of technology, in the ontology of art, and even in the mastery of techniques and materials, a series of extremely fruitful explorations have been made. We look forward to seeing more of his "Silk Road life".