Theafricancanvas

Chinese artists find the inspiration for new creations on a journey to the continent

Wang Zhao remembers the exact moment her eyes caught the first glimpse of Africa through the airplane’s window.

“As the plane began its descent, a piece of blue ocean in the middle of the African landmass appeared through the clouds: It was the enormous Lake Malawi, whose crystal-clear waters glistened under the sun’s rays, surrounded by large expanses of lush green forests,” said Wang, a 32-year-old woman who graduated from China Central Academy of Fine Arts in 2009 and has painted ever since.

At her side in the airplane were four fellow artists, invited by the Ministry of Culture of China on a trip to Africa. For 11 days from January 9 to 19, the group of five artists, two women and three men, visited three countries - Malawi, Tanzania and Mauritius, where they exchanged ideas with their African peers and tanked up on inspiration.

But as the plane was circling above Malawi, the thoughts of the nervous group were far removed from artistic influences and inspiring encounters awaiting them on the ground. A tense atmosphere prevailed in the small aircraft, recalled Wang, the group’s youngest member, as it was the first visit to Africa for most of them.

This was the case for Fu Xuming, 44, Professor at China Central Academy of Fine Arts and Tsinghua University’s Academy of Arts and Designs.

He told Chinafrica that when he first received the invite he had doubts as it seemed so distant and unlikely that this would happen to him. Despite his original misgivings, he took the plunge. But when the wheels of the plane finally touched the African soil after more than 20 hours of flight, reality hit home and he got cold feet. Would their first stop, Malawi, known as the “warm heart of Africa,” give them a welcome as warm as its reputation suggested, wondered Fu. Organized and funded by the Network of International Culturalink Entities (NICE), an institution under China’s Ministry of Culture, the purpose of this trip was to enable Chinese painters to have a personal experience of Africa, and then showcase it to their compatriots through their art.

The paintings, inspired and created as a result of this journey, will be exhibited in Mianyang City, Sichuan Province, on April 15, 2017, as part of the Belt and Road Scenery Exhibition, jointly organized by the Sichuan Institute of Culture and Arts and NICE.

This activity is part of the China-africa peopleto-people exchange plan, which was included in the Forum on China-africa Cooperation (FOCAC) Johannesburg Action Plan 2016-18, aimed at increasing exchanges and mutual learning between the African continent and China. With this in mind, the artists began their journey.

Accompanied by members of the local Chinese medical mission in Malawi, they drove around the country, starting from Lake Malawi before heading for the Zomba Massif, a mountain of the Shire Highlands in south Malawi.

Already, the Chinese artists began to draw sketches and rough drawings that would later guide their work back in China. Seeing many bicycles and the simple life of locals, they found Malawi to stir up unexpected feelings of nostalgia for a bygone era. Liu Kai, 48, Associate Professor at the School of Fine Arts of