These are a collection of works that embody the soul of a painter, vast, powerful, and extremely impactful. They should be stored in major art museums around the world. "Famous painter Fernando de Felice, the director of the National Academy of Fine Arts in Milan, Italy, once commented on the works of a Chinese artist. This artist isCurrent professor at Zhongyuan Institute of Technology, member of China Artists Association, director of Henan Artists Association, deputy director of Henan Oil Painting Art Committee, and vice president of Henan Oil Painting Society——Wang Gang.

He was once the deputy leader of the oil painting "Jiao Yulu" creation team of the National Major Historical Theme Art Creation Project. The work has been selected for the 2nd National Youth Art Exhibition, the 6th, 8th, 10th, and 11th National Art Exhibition, the 1st and 3rd National Oil Painting Exhibition, the Chinese Contemporary Painting Boutique Exhibition, the Chengdu Biennial Exhibition, etc. The performance art "Wang Gang - Lao Wan Earth Relief" won the Excellent Achievement Award of the 5th Literature and Art Awards in Henan Province, and the earth art "Earth Gaze" won the Expert Award and Public Award in the 2017 selection of the 20th China Sculpture Forum.The 2022 Earth Art "Staring at the Starry Sky" was named the most highly anticipated work at the Jinan International Biennial.

Wang Gang's works have social, contemporary, and historical significance, telling the epic of human civilization to the public through rich artistic language. It is the search for the fundamental and spiritual art of all existence, and it is Chinese art in the context of the world's great changes. Wang Gang's works have a high level of style and taste, and the reason why he is able to create such a large number of artistic treasures is inseparable from his life experience.

He is a rural educated youth from the third generation, who has endured great hardships, sweated profusely, and made friends with farmers. His original name was Yan Daochun, and he had a special fondness for the excellent culture and classical philosophy of the Chinese nation. He is very diligent and often goes out to sketch. He loves the magnificence of the Yellow River and Taihang Mountains. He was fascinated by the simplicity of art from ancient times to the Han Dynasty,onceFor over a decade, he has been researching the painting of painted pottery Han jars and has produced a number of influential still life creations in the art world. He is not ostentatious and indifferent to fame and fortune. He often reflects on the goodness and beauty of human nature, the origin and destination of humanity, and the harmonious relationship between humans and nature. He strives to use his artistic talent to inherit the distant cultural heritage and simple and rich geographical veins of the Central Plains, leaving behind immortal works with rich spiritual connotations for future generations.

He absorbed the essence of classical and contemporary art from the East and the West with broad feelings, and concentrated on nothing else. He is low-key in his character, but his works are grand and majestic, often inspiring the world with "astonishing artistic creativity" and shocking people with a powerful and profound momentum; Purifying the soul with a simple and robust spirit.

Because of this, Wang Gang's works can touch people's hearts, both inspiring them to strive and bringing tears to their eyes.The representative works that best demonstrate its academic status are the "Old Wan Series" works, which have been widely circulated both domestically and internationally through core journals and monographs such as "Art Research", "Chinese Oil Painting", "Oil Painters", "Contemporary Chinese Oil Painting", and "History of Contemporary Chinese Art". Many original works have been collected by the National Art Museum of China, China Oil Painting Academy, Central Academy of Fine Arts Art Museum, Henan Provincial Art Museum, Shandong Art Museum, as well as art institutions and private collections in the United Kingdom, France, and the United States.

According to incomplete statistics, many institutions such as Bowdoin College in the United States, China Academy of Fine Arts, Central Academy of Fine Arts, Sichuan Academy of Fine Arts, Hubei Academy of Fine Arts, etc. have taken "Wang Gang - Lao Wan Earth Relief Large Scale Performance Art" as a classic example for teaching contemporary Chinese art.

After two years of careful organization and planning, the case study exhibition "Wang Gang: Why the Yellow River - Contemporary Yellow River Theme Art Research Exhibition" of contemporary local artists at Zhengzhou Art Museum has received high praise from industry insiders and numerous audiences.The magnificent and profound works are the spiritual portraits of the people nurtured by the agricultural civilization on both sides of the Yellow River, and also a magnificent epic of the bloodline inheritance of the Chinese nation for thousands of years.

Secretary of Xiangyang District Committee, Hegang City, Heilongjiang ProvinceFan Jitao saw it from the "Cloud Exhibition Hall"Wang Gang's worksAfter the exhibition, I was deeply moved and personally went to Zhengzhou on April 12, 2023 to findheIntroduce the "ecological city" strategy established by the coal city of Hegang in recent years for transformation, as well as the extensive work done around this strategy. We sincerely invite Wang Gang to use Hegang's century old mine to create land art. Wang Gang and his team went to Hegang for on-site investigation, analysis and research. After more than four months of deep thinking on tracing the roots and facing the future, with the strong support of the Hegang Municipal Government, they created a groundbreaking masterpiece - the cosmic ecological art "Hegang Earth Eye".

This work uses various artistic techniques to comprehensively express the theme of cosmic ecology, transforming the two unique open-pit mines in Hegang into the discerning eyes of "humans" who embody the concept of "everything in one". It allows the giant who integrates the natural way to stand from Hegang, a once glorious industrial town in China, and embark on a journey full of Eastern wisdom, moving towards the future world through Nirvana.

In this issue of 'Ningdian Interview', Wang Gang has been invitedprofessorShare his artistic philosophy with readers.

Many art reports use the word "romantic" to describe you. The theme of your work is to always focus on workers and fight against the decline of society. Do you think your creative inspiration comes from past life experiences, or do you find inspiration from experiencing life through creation?

The works of artists are all related to their experiences. I have gone through more than half a century of ups and downs, served as a educated youth for two years, planted crops, drilled wells, built my own house and engaged in construction, and worked as a factory worker for a year. I have experienced many social changes and have a genuine physical experience of the living conditions and spiritual demands of grassroots workers.

I once spent several months with miners in the mining area, and with mountain people in the mountainous area. I also often went to the countryside to sketch, enduring many hardships and physical injuries. Therefore, a person's past experiences have shaped the spiritual foundation of their works. Every artist probably has this experience: it's not about having ideas before experiencing life, but about their own growth experience, pointing out which path they should take.

I have seen many comments that your Laowan series works have broken through the limitations of painting techniques in expressing human nature. Everyone has their own Laowan in their hearts. I would like to hear your interpretation of the Laowan series.

We are all Lao Wan. For hundreds of years, our ancestors were farmers. In 1999, three years after starting to paint Lao Wan, I wrote a short article called 'Me and Lao Wan'.

I painted Lao Wan because of my fascination with ancient sculptures, murals, and painted pottery. The rough, astringent, and clumsy, natural shapes and dazzling color textures are enchanting, and I hope to make a breakthrough in figure painting one day.

After years of searching, a group of fierce seafood like non industrial and non-agricultural people entered my field of vision. They were a group of people without faces that had long been forgotten. Their colorful and outdated clothes, thick sweat and smoke mixed with the scent of men, pulled me back to the hot heroic era. The long lost simplicity awakened the souls of the city that had been numb to modern civilization. The shock of the soul seeps into every inch of my bones along the veins of my heart, with a strong desire to express them, because I was once their partner, and only they could make me so impulsive.

I like that kind of silent shock, it comes slowly but moves the heart. Simplicity is a high realm of beauty, where the destination of emotions and the harmony of painting language are achieved in an instant. Spirit is not something to look for, it grows slowly in one's own land. High and low are the foundation, and modern civilization has grown on the backs of these people

For over 20 years, Lao Wan has gone from painting on shelves to clay sculpture, to clay figurine performance art, then to "Lao Wan - Earth Relief Performance Art," and finally to "Earth Growth" and "Earth Gaze" in Xinjiang, all the way to "Hegang Earth Eye" in Northeast China. The creative concept of "Eye of the Earth" is to transform a person who is 90 kilometers tall from a 2.17 square kilometer open-pit coal mine. This person combines humble humans with great nature, returns to the universe in the name of Earth, and seeks ecological balance in the name of art.

At this point, Lao Wan and the earth, as well as humans and nature, were completely integrated. Over the past 20 years, Lao Wan has come a long way and become a symbol of human roots and soul. Earth gives birth to all things, and humans come from the earth and return to it. Lao Wan traces back to the essence of humanity, expressing rich and profound human nature and spiritual aspirations.

The Yellow River was once an important theme in your creative work. How do you view the relationship between the Yellow River and the spirit of the Chinese nation? Has the Yellow River created our national spirit?

From a macro perspective, there are ten major rivers on Earth, with the Yellow River ranking fifth, but having the highest sediment content in the world.

The Yellow River originates from the Bayankola Mountains and carries a large amount of sediment as it flows eastward through the Loess Plateau. Since ancient times, the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River have undergone countless river course changes due to sedimentation, causing the riverbed to roll back and forth, thus creating a vast and fertile plain. At the same time, it has also brought great suffering to the Chinese ancestors living along the river. Our ancestors once worked together to build embankments and strengthen the river, and also broke through the embankments and breaches multiple times, using the rushing river water to resist external invasion.

Therefore, the Yellow River has nurtured and forged the Chinese nation. Created the indomitable national spirit of the Chinese people.

The Yellow River has been known as the Mother River since modern times, symbolizing the national soul of the Chinese nation in resisting foreign invasion during the Anti Japanese War. So when I paint the Yellow River, I am not painting scenery, but painting the magnificent history of the Yellow River, the culture behind the Yellow River, and the spirit of the Chinese nation.

Your recent work should be 'The Eye of the Earth in Hegang'. There have been reports evaluating this work as a sign that you will use land art as a means of artistic expression in the future. Do you agree with this statement?

The earth art works I have created are the accumulation of years of creation, the result of chance and opportunity, the combination of timing, location, and people, naturally reaching this point. It was not done intentionally before, and I will not do it intentionally in the future.

The large-scale land art I create is a complex and diverse visual expression system that facilitates the expression of macro level thoughts on nature and humanity. The artist's thinking and feelings are infinite, so the means of artistic expression are also infinite.

With the development of technology, there will be more new ways of expression involved in art, and more new artistic possibilities will be discovered. Therefore, I need to constantly learn and communicate, experience countless human spiritual worlds, and see the world from different dimensions.

Everything is just beginning, always on the road. I won't use a single technique, but change never leaves its roots. I can't do without the earth. Everything in this world can change, no matter how technology develops, the earth remains unchanged.

What kind of art works do you think can best express the spirit of Chinese people, or what kind of spiritual characteristics should art works focus on?

First of all, the spiritual characteristics of the Chinese people are introverted, deep, tolerant and tenacious. Not everyone possesses such spiritual traits while also possessing artistic expression abilities. Only artists with broad vision and profound life experience can create works of art that can show the spirit of Chinese people.

Our artistic creation does not need to deliberately pursue the expression of our national spirit, the theme should be more macroscopic. Artworks are the carrier of an artist's soul. They should reveal human nature, focus on the common destiny of humanity, and express the common aspirations of humanity. I believe this should be a higher pursuit for artists.