Rao FU incorporates mythology, epic tales, real-life events and imaginary elements in his work. We can see in his paintings the influence of different art movements as well as his own distillment of daily observations, embellished with his trademark mystery and eeriness. Through his unique artistic concoction, RU explores various emotions that are connected to the human essence, including fear, alienation, loneliness and confrontation. Seeing FU’s paintings up close is an immersive experience. It feels as if I’m standing on the edge of a cliff or staring into the universe. Initially, the visual impact and tension of his work convey a sense of chaos and unease. A deeper read reveals the warmth and care that FU carries as he observes his fellow humans as he weaves his brushstrokes and builds layers upon layers of paint. This, to me, is the most attractive aspect of FU’s creation.
Getting to Know the Artist
I first got to know Rao Fu’s work from his painting album, “Follow Wind”. The energetic brushstrokes and color palette that alludes to a rich art history had a profound effect on me. When I met FU in person, I was struck by his soft-spoken nature and wondered if this mild-mannered, literati-like artist really is the creator behind the artworks that exude such unbridled power and energy. As I spent more time with him over time, however, I got to know more about him as a person and saw both the emotions and rationality that go into his creative process, as well as how he observes, processes and expresses the many details he encounters in life.
FU’s work is never short of surprises. I still remember my first trip to his Dresden studio in 2017 and the feelings I had when I saw his “Biergarten” exhibited at the local biennale. The painting’s composition is highly dynamic. FU’s arrangement of elements in the foreground, midground and background incorporates an expressionist energy while displaying fine, intricate details. His handling of mountains, waters, and skies is especially remarkable as he mixes the perspectives of western drawing and eastern literati paintings to emphasize the details in geographical features and textures. These unique techniques allow him to create a backdrop of a fantastical and mesmerizing world.
The next time I was moved by FU’s work was when I traveled to his studio in 2019 and witnessed “Infinitrace” and “Inevitable”. The two large-scale triptychs placed in his studio appear somewhat cramped. The limitation of the space, in turn, accentuated the paintings epic nature and I was truly impressed by the fact that FU was able to conjure up such epic splendor that transcends the limits of time and space in reality. The two triptychs represent the two different perspectives through which FU explores the world: “Infinitrace” focuses on the expansive and boundless universality, whereas “Inevitable” reflects on the nuanced and microscopic aspect of reality. It is the visual distillment of FU’s many years of thoughts and reflection. “Infinitrace” conveys the artist’s exploration of the infinite universe and his reflection on the massive industrialization in our time. The painting and its significance in FU’s body of work makes its title perfect for his solo exhibition at the Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts in 2019.
Narrative Settings, Color and Composition
Two paintings in Rao FU’s solo show at the Kuandu museum, “Afternoon” and “Follow Wind II”, are indicative of the aesthetics in his earlier work. Their color palette is close to monochrome. Being drawn on paper, both paintings exhibit a distinct eastern quality to them. His 2014 work “Follow Wind II”, in particular, is a clear showcase of FU’s experimentations in his art after living in Germany for 10 years. The use of paper as the medium, the color palette, and the way FU paints landscape and desaturated background are all reflective of the artist’s earlier artistic training in China. On the other hand, the unconventional perspective and the multilayered narrative à la medieval European paintings within the frame shows FU’s artistic development during his time in Germany. This unique way of rendering a landscape with narrative elements became a hallmark of FU’s composition.
2018 was a pivotal year for FU as he adopted new colors and mediums. It was in that years that he began to experiment with painting on canvas as well as gradually moving away from his earlier monochrome palette to more colorful, contrasty combinations. Paintings such as “Shooting Girls” and “Rolltreppe” are representative of this transition. He matured into this new direction in 2019, and starting in 2020, he maintained the usual sense of mystery, romanticism, the expressionist brush strokes and Edvard Munch-like figures, while pushing his colors to a new level of importance. He creates strong contrast between bright and dark hues which gives off a musical quality and tension. The use of large patches of saturated colors is also a sign of him adopting a Paul Gauguin-like symbolism. His “Cloud Fire”, “Shooting Range” in 2020 and “Balcony” in 2021 are indicative of his incorporation of these new artistic elements.
FU never stops to explore and experiment with colors and composition. It is as if, at every stage of his creative career, he turns on a new switch and leads us into a hallway to a new creative space. The large patches of red and yellow reminds us of Paul Gaugin, and his recent experiments with different color schemes reflects the influence of Henri Matisse and Der Blaue Reiter, as the intertwining red, yellow, blue and purple express a musical rhythm. In his 2021 paintings “Fisher Girl” and “Pool” as well as his 2022 work “Man Skiing II”, the artist has reduced parts of the human figures into abstract expressions and allow the colors to dominate the paintings aesthetics and tempo. This method further accentuates the charm and beauty of his color-centric composition.
A Cross-cultural Perspective on Everyday Matters
Having lived in a cross-cultural background, Rao FU has always tried to transcend cultural boundaries and explore core existential subjects in his paintings. In the past few years, the world has experienced a great deal of alienation, conflicts, fear and instability due to the U.S.-China trade war and the global pandemic. The ongoing turmoil has affected FU as well, and the artist has in turn projected his concern onto the canvas. Early on in his career, FU made the “Chimerica” series. In 2019, he painted “Inevitable II” which deals with the armed conflicts in the era of tech wars, as well as “Everything Has Its Vanquisher”, through which he explores deep-seated fear in all humans. These paintings all reflect FU’s growing anxiety over the widening gaps in both the physical and spiritual world that we inhabit today.
FU also tries to excavate the meaning of life from countless seemingly mundane moments. He takes inspiration from the experiences he shares with his family as well as his in-depth observation of the surrounding reality. In some of his paintings, such as “Family” (2018), “Co-Driver” (2017), “The Red Kart” (2019) and “Fellow Traveler” (2019), Rao FU captures the beautiful time he spent with his children. They are also a metaphor for his family’s common path. His 2019 painting “A Way Back” and “Summer Days”, on the other hand, represent the artist’s new direction in rendering real-life figures and scenes. In “A Way Back”, the groom with a hunched-back comes in sharp contrast to the well-dressed lady in the carriage. Beneath the free-flowing brushstrokes and the saturated colors, the artist taps into stark nature of humans. In “Summer Days”, completed in the same year, FU has painted a fantastical painting within the painting through which he expresses his concern for the less fortunate from the lower socioeconomic classes.
“Caviar” is another important series of paintings where Rao FU expresses his concern for the working class. In two paintings of the series, completed in 2021, the artist has painted a fish-processing scene with expressionist lines and fantastical colors. This allows him the transcend a naturalist subject into a surrealist, magical scenario. The workers in the painting work from night to the crack of dawn. Key elements such as the color of the ground, the human figures and the first sign of daylight in the distance are painted in a coherent and subjective manner. Colors are just as important as the composition of the figures in conveying their vigor. In his new painting, “An Old Sailor”, FU pushes his sympathy towards the working men to an extreme by accentuating their contours, postures, facial expressions and inner spirituality: their empty eyes, green curly hair, brawny yet exhausted slumping right arm, along with the white shirt and draping table cloth come together to form a vivid image of those struggling at the bottom of society.
A Perpetual Pursuit of the Faith in Painting
Besides his attention to issues in the real world, many of FU’s paintings are imbued with his exploration in faith, consciousness and spirituality. From his 2019 large-scale work “Infinitrace”, to “Martyr”, “Undead River”, “Feast Goers”, “Torrent” and “Renaissance”, the artist has been constantly in the search for the meaning of life. In “Undead River”, we see undying spirits departing from the cycle of life in hopes to reach the coast of immortality. In “Feast Goers”, pilgrims traverse through mountains and rivers to pursue the ultimate truth. The world under FU’s paint brush often shifts and tumbles, like displayed in “Torrent”. However, the artist always maintains the courage to move forward with unyielding faith on his path of painting.
As a contemporary painter, Rao FU has chosen a different path than many of his contemporaries who chase after the new and radical. Like the classic masters of the past, he has adopted the tried-and-true method of making many sketches during the preparation of each oil painting. This allows him to fine tune the language of his painting. The rigorous process and his fastidious attention to details have also imbued his vibrant colors with a layer of profundity and weight, resulting in a sense of epic grandeur. At the same time, he often adds everyday images to his work and thus balances the contemporary and classic elements. FU’s rather traditional method is rarely adopted by today’s painter. But the artist is fully aware of his own pace and pays little attention to ongoing trends in the art world. He is persistent in maintaining his own process without skipping any step in an effort to convey his care and attention to the era we live in as well as his exploration of the world.
Rao FU’s canvases are filled with brushstrokes that exude the expressionist passion and fervent, mixed with romantic colors, imbued with his own inner reflections. Together, these elements form his humanistic perspective and an epic chronology of his evolution as a painter. Rao RU is like Janus, the ancient Roman god of transition, who always embraces the past while looking into the future. Through his own faith, he is constantly pondering ways to fuse the bygones and the yet-to-come, the classic and the contemporary, the material and the spiritual, the body and the soul, the annihilation and the renaissance, leading us back onto the perpetual journey of life.
