Maybe It's Time to Paint Again

Nov. 2, 2021


I’ve been reading a book called What Are You Looking At?: 150 Years of Modern Art in the Blink of an Eye, and one particular fact from the book struck me: academism places a strong emphasis on the technical skills, but modernism shifts the focus to ideas and concepts. This really got me thinking.

As a child, I loved painting. I would spend hours immersed in my own little world, completely absorbed by the colors and shapes I was creating. Everyone around me believed I was destined to become an artist one day.

When I got older, I received some formal art education and was placed in one of the best art classes in Beijing. I was trained in sketching, Gouache painting, and Chinese ink painting. But during this time, something shifted. I went from creating my own art to painting subjects I was told to replicate. Gradually, I began to question why I was painting at all. If I had mastered the technical skills to paint anything I wanted, what was the point? I had no answer back then, so I stopped.

For almost a decade, I didn’t pick up a brush. But after reading that book, I’ve started to revisit that lingering question. Now, I think I finally understand. Painting isn’t about replicating the world around you; it’s about expressing something within you. It doesn’t matter how you paint or even how well you paint—it’s about what you paint and the ideas behind it.

And maybe, just maybe, it’s time to paint again.