Gifted artist speaks to world

Sun Yingjie looks just like any other London arts college student.

But the 29-year-old is already being talked about by his peers in the city, and beyond, as one of the renowned Chinese artists of his generation, and that reputation only looks likely to grow stronger.

Already collectors across Europe have been buying his work, which has started appearing in many famous museums.

"I began learning to draw formally at 6 and studied at several arts school and art classes in China," says Sun, who was born in 1985 in Shangrao, Jiangxi province.

He received a bachelor's degree from the China Academy of Art and then continued his studies in London in 2007, at Camberwell College of Arts, Central Saint Martins College of Art, then Chelsea College of Arts.

His career as an artist got off to a dramatic start when he was still a student, as he says.

"My first major customer, a French collector, bought the whole lot, more than 10 paintings, for 8,000 pounds ($13,400, 10,030 euros)."

Soon after, he held his first exhibition at Central Saint Martins, which attracted a lot of attention from the school, other London students, and local and European collectors.

As his client base grew, so did the need for a more commercial operation, and he launched his Sunny Art Studio in central London in 2012, offering not only his works, but also classes in calligraphy, portraiture, still life, Chinese painting, life drawing and cast drawing.

He has hired two art teachers to help him, and the classes have attracted more than 200 students.

However, he says there are three clear main focuses to his work: life in China and the UK; his beliefs and their impact on his everyday existence; and Chinese literature.

The traditional skills he uses, he says, are generally based on those of Western masters, but at the same time he integrates a lot of new concepts and Chinese philosophy. That makes for an art vocabulary that global audiences can understand.

Zhou Heran contributed to this story.

(China Daily European Weekly 08/08/2014 page8)