Interviews with Artists Featured in the “Truthfulness, Compassion, Forbearance” Art Exhibition: Fan Hong

“Unmovable” by Amy Lee (Fan Hong) (34in X 55in), 2004

Reporter: Zhu Qingming, a reporter for Zhengjian.org/PureInsight.org
Fan: Ms. Fan Hong, the artist
Reporter: Could you tell something about your drawing history?

Fan: I liked drawing when I was very young. Later, I attended an art college and majored in costume design. My current profession is costume design. I primarily work on traditional Chinese drawings. This is because, after my undergraduate education I went to graduate school majoring in traditional Chinese (realistic) painting and portraiture.

Reporter: How did you start to practise Falun Gong?

Fan: I have loved drawing since I was young. I did not like to talk much, but tended to draw things on paper when I had certain feelings. In addition to drawing, I am interested in aesthetics, western aesthetic history, as well as philosophy. Drawing is actually a process of depicting your thoughts. It is philosophical in that it has inner meanings in how you express your understanding and thoughts on life. Often, while drawing, many questions about life came to my mind and I found the eternal subjects were always tragic. No matter whether it was Romeo and Juliet from western society, or Liangshan Bo and Zhu Yingtai (Butterfly Lovers) from oriental culture, the theme of the drawing was essentially the same. Paintings such as “The Death of David,” along with others reflecting Jesus being nailed to the cross, all showed that the eternal subjects were tragic. They are telling us important themes about life.

Back in China, I once drew an artwork titled “Three Degenerations” which won a provincial award. That drawing was about one person’s reincarnations, with one of the generations as a countryside girl. Reincarnation was one of the things I thought about at that time. Every year I went to the countryside, especially the fishing villages, looking for drawing topics. The fishermen went out to sea before dawn, and did not return until it was dark. They had a poor and simple life. I thought a lot about life, which naturally transcended into the issue of belief. I read books on Buddhism, western religions, and aesthetics. Later, I started to practise Tai-chi but found it only taught the exercises, not cultivation principles. Quite accidentally, I came across Falun Gong, and read Zhuan Falun. This book answered the questions that puzzled me all the time, questions about life, tragedies, and reincarnation. Issues for which I could not find answers anywhere else were all well explained in this book. Starting to practise was the turning point in my artwork.

Reporter: How did practising Falun Gong change your viewpoint on art?

Fan: When I was a costume designer in Guangzhou City, China, there was a period of time that I did not go to work but instead went to a training program at the Guangzhou Fine Art College. At that time, my employer treated me very well—they even offered to send me overseas for training although I did not want to go. At that time, I had a strong desire for creativity in my drawing. At that time the trend was that an artist should draw things no one else had drawn so that he or she could establish a unique style. Influenced by this, artists paid much attention to form, while ignoring content and essence. It seemed the only important thing was not what you drew, but how you drew it. During that time I also drew some portraits, including some deformed ones. People in the drawings were seen as if with scattered eyesight, as if the entire person had no soul. Drawing an object was just to release some emotions.

After I started to practise Falun Gong, I found it was wrong to continue draw like that. For example, when drawing a human body, my realistic drawing was very close to a real person. However, when my classmates and teacher looked at the drawing, there was some kind of lust in their expression. I realised that, although I intended to convey the beauty of human body, it did not have a good effect. So I stopped drawing those subjects, as well as deformed ones. Afterwards I read more of the history of drawing and painting, and came to know that the earliest artworks were left by gods to human beings. The subjects in those artworks would lead human beings to compassion and to upgrade their morality, thus having a good effect. If artworks are created just to satisfy one’s sensory feelings, or only seeking outer form or style, such so-called art was actually a consequence of the degeneration of human morality. Since I started cultivating, I came to know that the first and utmost thing about a drawing is the theme, namely, what to draw. I did not think about that before I started to practise Falun Gong, which was actually being irresponsible.

Reporter: What made you join the “Truthfulness, Compassion, Forbearance” Art Exhibition?

Fan: Because of practising Falun Gong, I was also affected by the massive persecution. I was arrested, put in jail for brainwashing, sent to a mental hospital, and force-fed. This persecution destroyed my entire life, and there was no way out. Finally, I barely survived and made it to the U.S. After coming here, the one thing I wanted to do most was to convey the persecution, along my thoughts and feelings amidst it. I have many thoughts and deep memories of things that happened in China. My friends, my classmates, and my fellow Falun Gong practitioners, some of whom have already been persecuted to death and some of whom are still held in jail. I would like, through my drawings, to show their grand and noble actions to people. I recall the situation in jail and what it was like to be on the verge of death. I think they are worth drawing and being kept. So I chose the theme of being persecuted.

I had two drawing for the art exhibition reflecting the persecution. One of them is “Unmovable”. It reveals the contrast between good and evil, telling us that a practitioner’s diamond-solid determination is indestructible. In the drawing, a beautiful girl is meditating in a park in the early morning, but is brutally beaten by persecutors. The overall drawing has soft colours to depict trees and grass in the morning. Breezes waft through the girl’s hair, forming a clear contrast with the vicious police’s brutality. One policeman grabs the girl’s hair to beat her. A little angel is helping the practitioner to suppress evil. The entire drawing has a structure in the shape of a “V”, which provides a large space for the imagination. The meditating practitioner is sitting in the middle at lower part of the drawing. There are two vicious policemen, one tilted to the left and one to the right, forming a “V” shape. The movements of the policemen on both sides highlight the girl’s firmness. Plus, her sitting is in a shape of an upright triangle, showing she is as solid as a mountain, undisturbed by surrounding environment. Her meditation is the fifth exercise—Strengthening Divine Powers, showing the theme of “Indestructible as Diamond”. The four little angels form a circle, creating a harmony in contrast to the brutality. The righteous figures are in light colours, showing the purity; while the evil ones are in dark colours. This also forms a contrast.