Ma Kelu

Ma Kelu is an artist who has always avoided the mainstream and has never compromised with it.[3] Due to an unfortunate occurrence during Kelu's early years, he has never received formal painting classes and was not even able to afford proper drawing materials. Despite poverty, his family was very supportive and saved every penny to buy Kelu the necessary tools to paint. Ma Kelu moved to Beijing with his father in 1960 and entered primary school in 1961. In 1968, he entered the Beijing 23 Secondary School and started painting with Chan Fosheng as his teacher. In 1969, he got to know Wei Hai and Zhou Maiyou and together they discussed art. He was sent down to a village in 1970. He returned to Beijing in 1972 and worked in the Chaoyangmennei Restaurant, managed by the Food and Drinks Company of the Eastern District. In 1972-73, he met Zhang Wei, Li Shan, Shi Xixi, Zheng Ziyan, Bao Lean, Wei Hai, and Wang Aihe, and they regularly went out to paint together. In 1974, he worked in the mechanical maintenance group of the Food and Drinks Company. In the same year, he met Zhao Wenliang, Yang Yushu, and Shi Zhenyu, and his painting style was influenced by Wenliang and Yushu. He also participated in an underground art exhibition of what was to become the Wuming (No Name) Painters Group. The exhibition was held at the home of Zhang Wei (room 305, Fusuijing Building, Beijing). He then participated in the first and second public exhibitions of the Wuming Painters Group in Beijing in 1979 and 1981 respectively. He resigned from his work to become a freelance artist in September 1984. In early 1988, he traveled to Germany, Sweden, and Denmark. He settled in New York at the end of October. In 1989, he was offered a scholarship to study art in the Painting and Sculpting School in Main. In 1989 and 1990, he studied in the Arts Department, Empire State College, State University of New York. He moved back to Beijing in 2006 and set up a studio in Beigao, the rural part of Beijing. Painting, precisely speaking, is where Ma Kelu's interest lies. He sees himself as a “growing artist,” who holds an open-minded and studious attitude with adaptive and creative abilities.[4]

Kelu enjoys painting because it has brought him an immense amount of joy. Spending time in painting brought him comfort, offered him the opportunity to express himself, and allowed him an escape from reality during the time of the Cultural Revolution. Between 1970 and 1972, Kelu was sent to the countryside to do manual labor along with many of his peers. Besides being forced to toil in the fields, he often had to walk two miles to paint, so as to avoid the suspicious eyes in his village. In the wilderness, landscapes became a major theme of his painting. Returning to Beijing, he gradually became close with a group of other self-taught young painters. These painters, like Kelu, were tired of the dominance of socialist-realist art. They often gather together in parks or the suburbs to paint landscapes. In order to avoid being noticed and to make their tools more portable, they modified small tool boxes into all-in-one painting kits. As a result, most of their paintings were small, normally about 60 square inches each.

The Wuming Painting Group was an early group of contemporary Chinese artists noted for experimentation with a number of late-19th and early-20th-century Western styles including Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, and Fauvism. Although their paintings do not appear particularly radical in their treatment of content or form, the very act of painting non-revolutionary subject matter in non-naturalistic styles was not accepted by the establishment at that time. Wuming comes from two generations, diverse class backgrounds, various working positions, and some pre-existing circles of close friends. Figures of the older generation have much in common: all were born before the establishment of the PRC; all came from families defined as “class enemies” by 1950; all took entrance examinations and were rejected by art schools or academies, and all learned art largely by themselves.

Most of the artists in this group made salaries between sixteen and forty some yuan per month. They had no studios and little money for paint and canvas. Due to a limited budget, the group used paper from ordinary drawing paper costing twenty-five cents per sheet to thicker watercolor paper costing seventy-five, and they brushed boiled bone glue or geeo paste on it to prepare the surface. The group labored six days a week, eight hours plus two hours of political study per day. The only time they could paint was in the few hours after work and on their one-day off during the week.

A large proportion of their paintings are landscapes made in and out of Beijing, depicting mountains and water, flowers and trees, sunshine and moonlight. They also painted human figures and still lifes. The Wuming group was exploring humanity, searching for qualities of compassion, empathy, and dignity in images of friends, neighbors, and strangers.

Their catalog includes thirteen volumes, each about a single artist. Paintings within each volume are centered on Wuming period while stretching throughout the artist's career, thereby allowing the study of both group and individual development.

Members: Ma Kelu, Liu Shi, Shi Zhenyu (Founding Member), Shi Xixi, Tian Shuying, Wang Aihe, Wei Hai, Yang Yushu (Founding Member), Zhang Da'an (Founding Member), Zhao Wenliang (Founding Member), and Zheng Ziyan.

The Wuming Painting Group was active primarily from the mid-1960s to late 1970s.

On July 7, 1979, the first public exhibition of the Wuming Painting Group opened in Beijing's Beihai Park.

“Life itself is an incident, perplexing, uncertain and helpless. Facing it is the only option”

• Art and China's Revolution