Chan Yuk Fan

Chen Xufan, styled Chen Shi, art name Sangpu Shanren, master of Dongzi Studio. Born in 1961, Guangdong Shantou native, and a direct disciple of Professor Yao Minsheng, a renowned Chinese art educator. Currently a member of the Chinese Han Garden Stele Forest Art Research Association, Shantou JinYuan District Calligraphers Association, Nanling Seal Society, Shantou Chinese Painting and Calligraphy Research Association, Huadu District Artists Association, and Huadu District Calligraphers Association.

Skilled in both calligraphy and seal carving, with particular excellence in ink painting. His landscape paintings draw upon the strengths of Wang Meng, Shi Tao, Xu Wei, and Zhao Zhiqian, inheriting the true teachings of the ancients and integrating them to forge his own distinctive artistic style. His creative approach is rigorous: whether in composition, form, color, or aesthetic intent, every element is meticulously refined. He strives to employ ancient, robust, and thick brushstrokes, employing varied yet unified ink techniques, conveying inner emotion through the brush and ink, composing points, lines, and planes with interplay of emptiness and solidity, dense and sparse arrangements, resulting in works that are elegant, refined, vigorous, and profound, radiating a yang energy of metallic and stone-like spirit, achieving the realm of "near yet not superficial, vigorous and steady, as if immersed in the scenery, as if hearing its voice."

I deeply understand that an artist must possess life experience and profound insight; thus, I have devoted tireless effort to studying various aspects of human society and the humanities—including literature, history, philosophy, law, aesthetics, art, political science, ethics, religion, geography, and music. I am fully aware that such knowledge and cultivation are essential to an artist, intimately connected to artistic creativity and vitality.

My works have been selected and awarded in numerous exhibitions at national, provincial, and municipal levels. Among them, a collaborative piece with Professor Yao Minsheng is collected by the Wu Zhaolin Memorial Hall in Hubei Province. My four-volume seal carving album represents my most heartfelt endeavor. My representative work, "Chinese Painting," has been published in overseas Chinese literature and included in the Dictionary of Chinese Folk Notables and the Dictionary of Chinese Calligraphers and Notables. I worked for twenty-seven years at the Resource Management Office of Shantou University, dedicating myself to art education and creation, and now teach at Huashan Overseas Chinese Middle School in Huadu District, Guangzhou.

With a dream-filled brush, I paint wondrous scenes; with ink and brush, I convey sincere emotion. After forty years of learning art, I understand its profundity—I know that ink and brush are the soul. The road ahead is long and arduous; I shall seek high and low without cease.

The landscape paintings exhibited here are recent creations; they may be crude and imperfect, and I sincerely welcome the guidance and corrections from esteemed experts.