World Expo

World Expo Series

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Shanghai is evidently an important stage of our world tour after the Beijing Olympics, so Dr. Chen decide to produce 100 paintings during the 6 months of the Event, a challenge to a 75 year-old artist. After the opening, the visitors acknowledged that the 2010 Shanghai World Expo is the biggest manifestation of international exchange and global achievement, with 183 nations participation, 248 participant units of nations, important international institutions and enterprises, near 30,000 performances of different kinds etc. all happened in 5.8 kilo meters in Pudong seems record-breaking in the history of the World Exposition since 1851.

 

Dr. Chen bought 70 advance tickets and entered the Expo Garden every two or three days to visit different pavilions in gathering materials and inspiration for painting. He wrote: “I started to paint, I set myself free and void, without any prediction, pre-mindedness, nursing inspiration naturally, eager to feel, be touched in front of pavilions, one after the other, waiting the moment hit by mint, to grasp the painting brushes. I didn’t make minute drafts, I just made very quick drafts or non, but boldly and directly start to paint on the canvas whenever I was inspired. I alter styles, techniques, colorizations to match the impression I got from divers pavilions. In general, my brush follows my mind which respect the “inner life” in every painting to be, like a seed buried under the earth to grow up naturally. At the beginning I felt quite uncertain, hesitative and even not knowing how to start. But little by little, I find the way to approach, to catch the essential and express in a proper way with confidence. Later it seems that I can paint like a child and enjoy doing it such as Picasso has said: “I have directed my entire life towards learning how to draw like a child.” The secret is “to hammer the iron while it is hot” as Picasso has also said: “Paint liberally and without hesitation, to preserve the freshness of the first impression.”

 Besides about 80 interviews from different kind of media, including from the CCTV, and selected as “Star of the Expo”, Dr. Chen was invited to have a solo-exhibition in the Expo Garden in October, one month before the closing, at the Entertainment Hall in the Garden D. where Dr. Chen finished his 100th painting before media and crowded visitor, the first and unique artistic expression in 159 years of the history of the World Expo.