This post was written by Chinese artist Zhu Kecheng, about painting with her father Zhu Jianhui, about his influence on her as an artist, and a recent experimental painting project they completed together, with the works below titled simply “Watercolour”.
When I was a child, I liked to paint the sky, the ground, the sheets, and cut my trousers like Yayoi Kusama’s wave point. My dad said I couldn’t help it; I had inherited his artistic DNA.
When I first saw the prints in my father’s studio, I was intrigued. I wondered what fun it could be, curious about the weird tools–mushroom-like tools of all sizes, road roller-like tools, a piece of white paper on a board, rolled out of the ground like a road roller machine with pictures on it. This experience and curiosity established my first Enlightenment about printmaking. When I developed a great interest in art, my father thought it should develop with my nature. So, I started my daily graffiti practice.
Then I uncontrollably fell in love with prints and printmaking, an interest of which my parents were very supportive. We would often have fierce debates about different artistic concepts, but could also quietly share the same space for creation. My mother often jokes that my father and I are not actually father and daughter, but friends.
We recently cooperated on a painting experiment. We created art together on the same blank page. I would draw the first stroke and he would draw the second stroke. So we took turns to see what would happen.
After an afternoon’s play, our brushes sometimes fighting and sometimes merging, these are the results. What do you think?
