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Qu Leilei

BEFORE THE REVOLUTION Most of my generation lived through a similar experience to mine during the Cultural Revolution. Now, living in the West, I find people are fascinated by my past. Looking back I realise how much I learnt about life during that time. So, even if I received little formal education, I don't see it as a waste of time. I was a happy child: born in 1951 in Qiqihar, Manchuria, where my father, a former military man, was running a factory. We moved to Beijing when I was four and my mother, who was in medicine, became deputy director of Beijing Medical University. My father by then had become a famous writer and we spent holidays in the Summer Palace.

TOUGHING IT OUT Growing up, communism was all we knew; we didn't know anything was wrong for a long time. The Cultural Revolution began in the universities in 1966: my parents became targets because they were intellectuals as well as senior officers. They were branded capitalist roaders and revisionists. My mother was tortured and sent to do hard labour. She was finally allowed home after having had her arm broken. My generation were used by Chairman Mao to stir up the population. Once the violence had happened we were sent to the countryside for 're-education'. This was Mao's way of getting rid of us youngsters. The country life was hard but I was very enthusiastic. I became a barefoot doctor. Most of the population had no medical assistance available, so, although unqualified, I could help as I had more medical knowledge than some [thanks to his mother]. In 1969, my parents had been liberated, they were no longer a target and I was able to join the army to do military service, which was the best way at the time for young people to escape the masses. We were envied because the army controlled everything.

FIRST IMPRESSIONISM I had dreamt of becoming a doctor, an international swimmer or an artist. As a child I loved my weekly calligraphy and painting lessons, even though it was very traditional work. I could draw freely - as long as it was Chairman Mao or other revolutionary figures. I had a strong, stubborn interest in art from the age of six and would carry a sketchbook around everywhere. While working for television, I started to question what really happened and where had it all gone wrong. From 1973, when I left the army, I determined I would make art my career. I had so much to communicate and traditional Chinese art did not [allow] me to express everything I wanted to say about life. In 1973, I went to the house of a friend whose father [had been] deputy principal of [Peking] University. He had been tortured to the point of paralysis and could no longer move. He indicated the art-history books on his shelves and told me to help myself. This is when I discovered Impressionism. It was a revelation. I realised at last what art could achieve.

EVENT HORIZONS [The year] 1976 was a turning point, not only for me but for China [as well]. Zhou Enlai died in January, which led to the Tiananmen Square movement on April 5. Mao also died that year. As part of a team of journalists, in which I had the job of lighting technician, I was involved in all these seismic events, which included reporting on the Tangshan earthquake.

I knew I had to find a way to express myself through my art. We were disappointed with the new leaders and together with artist friends we formed the Stars Arts Movement [a Beijing-based group of artists who campaigned for greater freedom within the arts]. From 1949 until the Cultural Revolution, art in China had been twisted into propaganda and pushed into an extreme style. We wanted to return to what it should be and to express our personal feelings. In September 1979, the authorities refused to let us hold a show so we decided to hang our art on the railings outside Beijing's National Gallery. The police stopped us [so] we put a notice on Democracy Wall and staged a protest march demanding our right to show our work. This led to a political scandal. Later we were offered our first formal show elsewhere and hundreds of thousands [of people] came to see it.

GO WEST The situation was getting difficult for me in China; my sister had moved to England and suggested that as an artist I should see Western art. So, in 1985, I moved there with just US$30 in my pocket and some rolled up paintings under my arm. I started from zero: no name, no one knew me, no money. I knew I had to survive so I did everything from washing dishes to painting portraits on the pavement. I was lucky to meet [Associated Press] correspondent Edith Lederer, who gave me my first show in her house. One thing led to another and I had offers for more shows. I was recognised and now in demand to teach traditional Chinese art. I am often approached by Christie's, Sotheby's, the V&A and the British Museum to give lectures on Chinese art history. All this helped to build up my career.

LIFE AS AN EPIC Another personal turning point of my life in the West came in 1989. When the Tiananmen Square massacre happened I dropped everything to concentrate on the serious art I had long wanted to do. In 2005, the Ashmolean Museum, in Oxford, held a solo exhibition of my work [a rare honour for a living artist], titled 'Everyone's Life is an Epic', I showed large portraits [painted in Chinese ink on rice paper], where I researched the meaning and value of life and the divinity of humanity. From 2006, I have been concentrating on how brush and ink deal with light and shade. This has never before been part of Chinese art history and could lead to a new type of Chinese figure painting.

PRIDE AND JOY My work has come full circle; next year I will be staging my first solo show at Beijing's National Gallery. It is a great honour to be chosen. Recently, China Central Television aired a documentary about my work, which enabled me to look back on my first half century. I am a happy man now. My wife, Caroline, and I took our daughter to Beijing to study the Chinese language, which is very important for her. Not only for the language but also because of her half-Chinese identity. I now look at my daughter the same way I look at my work: both properly combine East and West.

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