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Xia Junna
Xia Junna (born July 16, 1947) is a Chinese artist born in Inner Mongolia, China, who is known for her work as combination of western oil painting and Chinese modern art. With no limitation on media use, she works in the genre of impressionism, exploring the sense of "purity" in painting.

Life
Xia Junna was born in Inner Mongolia on July 16, 1971, her ancestral home is Shandong. Her father and mother both graduated from Beijing Agricultural University majoring in machinery. Her father has a passion for literature and art. The first person in the family to engage in art was her uncle and grandfather Li Jingkai. He was one of the first batch of Chinese students who went to France to study Western fine arts. After returning to China, he taught in Tianjin Academy of Fine Arts. In 1984, her family moved to Weihai due to job transfer. She studied in Weihai No. 2 Middle School, where she learned Traditional Chinese painting from her first art teacher, Mr. Cong Jianzi. In 1987, she was admitted to the Middle School attached to the Central Academy of Fine Arts and received rigorous art training from the traditional academy. During this period, the outlook on life and art were directly influenced by Teacher Shen Ling, which laid a good foundation for her formation of painting style in the future. In 1991, she graduated from the Middle School attached to The Central Academy of Fine Arts and won the award of excellence in graduation Creation. In the same year, she was admitted to the Fourth Studio of the Oil Painting Department of The Central Academy of Fine Arts, where she studied under Wen Lipeng, Ge Pengren and Wang Yuping to explore the integration of Western oil painting technique and Chinese contemporary art. During her school years, she worked and created works that won many awards and were collected by the school.

Awards
She graduated from the Oil painting Department of The Central Academy of Fine Arts in 1995, and won the Excellent Award of the Central Academy of Fine Arts and the Okamatsu Family Scholarship in Japan.

Early works
When Xia Junna was still a student, some of her sketches and oil paintings show extraordinary strength and strange atmosphere with strong lines and light and shade. In 1993, she painted a series of Big Birds, which added a surreal color of horror. In the process of learning, Xia Junna was also unconsciously influenced by Picasso, Renoir and the sacred religious atmosphere of Francesca.

Artistic view
She stated, “I often indulge in my own imagination, in this absolute vacuum, everything is clearly discernible. Everything is fuzzy and unknown again, like and not like between, increased imagination space. I like to swim in the mystery of the imagination, in the paradox of the search, I think that I found the most real, the most powerful, the most moving thing. In terms of painting, I try to break the normal order of narrative space，the light and shadow, to deconstruct the picture, because I found a lot of works of the ancient western artists do not care about the existence of the entity, the shape and the specific characteristics of the color relations provide full of human interest, they may think that the illusion of depth and volume have more aesthetic value. Nature is worth imitating because it provides a wealth of colors and shapes that we painters could never create. But how to reproduce human values and spirit from nature, here will be more rich nourishment to nourish our creativity. I hope to retain conscious experience in the process of painting and to strengthen my emotions through more powerful control over the medium of expression.To have a visual experience, and to translate my visual experience into the language of modeling, requires the ability to be mesmerized. Visual experience cannot be based only on feelings and perceptions; feelings and perceptions that have not been purified by the nature of things will only remain on the surface of emotions or simply disappear in them.”

Painting style
In terms of her painting style, her works mostly belong to the category of impressionism. The dots and lines are completely casually, magically scattered in the painting, and the black and white fluttering in the lead-gray hues constitute a mysterious sequence of light and shadow in her paintings. Xia Junna's paintings generally start from the face of a figure, derive the posture of the body from the face, derive another figure from this figure, and then deduce the environment of the figure.

Girls and flowers are often the subjects of Xia Junna's creation. However, when she deals with the girl's character image, she tries to distinguish it from the realistic depiction of the character image in the academic school, and she does not pursue the differentiated individual expression of the character image. What she pursues is more to create a pure artistic atmosphere in paintings. From her paintings, we can see the partial abstraction, expressiveness combined with the overall realistic atmosphere. The proper use of the light and shade of colors, the warm and cold, and many other independent elements are integrated with the overall atmosphere, complementing each other, and the picture appears noble, elegant, and gorgeous.

Another unique visual language of Xia Junna is to break the normal narrative space and the order of light and shadow, re-deconstruct the picture, and expand the two-dimensional visibility and possibility. Xia Junna wrote in the article: "In order to make my thinking transcend two dimensions and the picture returns to two dimensions, I refuse to use photos or use other picture materials, and I never draw sketches because it prevents me from feeling in fantasy Space and objects prevent me from expressing myself more smoothly and accurately." For her, only by emphasizing the plane layout can the external three-dimensional structure be reshaped into the soul's space. In her paintings, you will often see that the near is imaginary, the far is real, the place that should be bright is dark, and the place that should be dark is bright. Points, lines, and surfaces get a high degree of freedom. The irrationality of light and dark has been brought into full play. These high degrees of autonomy make Xia Junna's pictures special and mysterious. Works such as Girl and Hua Jieyu are excellent examples.

She usually applies a large amount of color and then looks for something similar in shape in the middle. Sometimes black and white appear in the lead-gray tones, forming a mysterious sequence of light and shadow in the painting. Although her paintings are rich in colors, the overall tone is gray. She always adds gray blocks to the bright colors so that the bright colors will appear more vivid, and the grays will be more stable.There is also a clear contrast in her paintings: the face, skirt, and hands are imaginary, but a certain pattern on the table will have a bright golden yellow. Xia Junna's rich and mysterious colors are created by mobilizing all emotions.

Exotic atmosphere
For Xia Junna, exoticism is a beautiful imagination space. It is neither western in real life nor the life sentiment of the European middle class. It can only be said to be a fantasy that does not exist. The exoticism shown in her face paintings is ultimately related to the French literature of the nineteenth century that she read when she was a teenager. Xia Junna said: "If I am a Westerner, my exoticism must be in the East. I am an Oriental, and my exoticism must be in the West." This sentiment is the aesthetic standard she believes in and the virgin complex of her personal inner world. Xia Junna combines concrete and abstract forms and Chinese and Western art to create her own art. This combination of Chinese and Western aesthetic view has formed a mysterious atmosphere. Early Spring embodies her ideology; it reveals the conflict and integration of Eastern and Western cultures while showing time and space. After her careful balance, elements become unique and unforgettable.

Balthus' influence on Xia Junna's paintings
Many of Xia Junna's artistic inspiration comes from the comprehension of ancient and modern artists, such as Raphael, Renoir, Vermeer, etc. However, the most influential artist should be Balthus. In Xia Junna's works Golden Years and Dance of Youth, there are quaint and ritualized characters and scenes. Balthus is good at painting young girls, they often lying on the couch, showing a lazy look, or looking in the boudoir's mirror. They are not tall but evenly proportioned with round and charming faces. Balthus's description of the psychology of the characters in his works is profound. Influenced by Balthus, Xia Junna's pictures also show the suspenseful atmosphere and mysterious tones, and she often repeats the same subject, girl and flower. Although the subjects are the same, both artists want to find a more appropriate expression form by looking for differences in composition and color.

Girls in Xia Junna's paintings
Gorgeous fresh fruits represent a splendid life, and colorful flowers symbolize eternal love. These girls in her paintings may represent herself. Xia Junna chose the static characters in the room, through the girl's dreams, self-pity, and fantasy, to discover the subtle things in the characters' psychological activities. They have a romantic sentiment or nostalgia for the youth that has just passed away and a touch of sadness. This kind of emotional expression comes from Xia Junna's unique cognition and perception of life. Their eyes are pure and solemn, they and the flowers reflect each other, but they shade each other. Women's pressure in modern urban life and the loss of the future are all manifested in these seemingly idle girls. In the work Magic Box, the blooming lilies take the characters' place to occupy the painting's center. The women with bowed heads are restrained, but the flowers represent women bloom freely, forming a unique feminine space.

Feminist art in modern China
With the reform and opening up and the influence of Western artistic trends, Chinese female artists who were active in the painting world in the 1990s gradually reinterpreted the theme of "female" with a unique perspective and life consciousness. They convert women's delicate feelings and agitated emotions into life-rich language symbols. Their works are different from male works and the works of female painters of any previous era. They reject politics, history, and other grand themes and instead start from daily life; they tend to portray their feelings and personal experiences in their hearts and tap their inner resources; the themes are more life-oriented.

Looking at most contemporary female painters' works, they have neither conventional models nor thoughtful ideas. Instead, they record the feelings of life based on their inner passion and intuition, sensibility is their way of probing life.

Xia Junna's paintings profoundly express the living conditions of women in modern society, with a sense of superiority, emptiness and struggle. She naturally articulates her life, the important thing for her is not the form nor the content, but the ability to grasp and control them. Her creation focuses on the expression of painting language and the transmission of emotional atmosphere, which is also the characteristic of most female artists in China today.

Exhibitions
In 1996, she participated in Shanghai International Art Biennale, China Art Exhibition (Shanghai Art Museum), China Sketch Art Exhibition (Beijing China Art Museum) and towards the new century - Chinese Youth Oil Painting Exhibition (Beijing China Art Museum).

In 1998, she participated in the world history - Women Art Exhibition (Beijing China Art Museum)

In 2000, she participated in "the world of female painters - the third exhibition" (Beijing International Art Garden), the 20th century Chinese oil painting exhibition (Beijing China Art Museum), and held the individual oil painting exhibition of "youth suite" in the same year (Shanghai Art Museum Gallery)

In 2001, she participated in the world women's Art Exhibition (China Art Museum in Beijing) and the annual meeting of China's art elites held in Chengdu. She was named as the new artist of the year, participated in the Chengdu Art Biennale (Chengdu), held the paper individual works exhibition of minutiae Chunhua (Soka Gallery in Taiwan), and participated in the Nomination Exhibition of Chinese women's oil painting (Beijing Yisen Gallery)

In 2003, she participated in the third China Oil Painting Exhibition (China Art Museum), today's China Art Exhibition (China Century Monument), new concrete art exhibition (Liu Haisu Art Museum)

Solo exhibitions

 * 2000, Youth Suite in Shanghai Yibo Gallery
 * 2001, Counting Spring Blossoms in Taiwan Soka Gallery
 * 2002, Classical New Vision in Taiwan Qindeju Gallery
 * 2005, The harvest of Life in Shanghai Art Museum