In an age when we encounter an overwhelming amount of art on phone screens, standing before the canvases at a new exhibition at the He Xiangning Art Museum feels like a reset. The paint has texture and depth; the brushstrokes cast shadows. These are qualities that often disappear on phone screens and in art books.

“Passing the Torch Through the Brush: An Exhibition of Figurative Oil Paintings” invites visitors to experience the enduring appeal of light, shadow and pigment in oil painting.

A painting created by Zhu Chunlin in 2025. Photos courtesy of the exhibition organizers

The exhibition features works by five contemporary artists who have devoted themselves to oil painting over many years: Yang Feiyun, Zhang Linong, Zhang Yibo, Zhu Chunlin and Chang Lei. It also includes Dai Ze’s landscape painting “Xiangshan Mountain in Autumn” as a specially introduced work.

A painting created by Zhang Linong in 2019.

Different life experiences, ways of seeing and artistic reflections have led these artists to develop distinctive approaches to portraiture, landscape, everyday life and the language of painting itself. Brushstrokes preserve traces of the artist’s hand; color embodies visual judgments formed through observation; and light and shadow connect the artist to the passage of time in the surrounding environment.

A painting created by Zhang Linong in 2022.

Figurative painting, therefore, presents not merely the appearance of an object but also the process through which an artist perceives, understands and reorganizes the world. It is through these slow and subtle choices that a painting acquires an individual character and vitality that cannot simply be replicated.

“Xiangshan Mountain in Autumn” created by Dai Ze in 1995.

The exhibition invites viewers to pause before the canvas. Through every brushstroke and layer of color, visitors can experience how different artists respond to painting in their own ways, allowing an artistic tradition sustained for nearly a century to continue evolving today.

A painting created by Yang Feiyun in 2020.