"For artist, searching never ends," Mo Fu says when it comes to searching for his own language of art.

Work No.1, oil on canvas with synthetic materials, 2m*2m

Born and raised in Guangdong, He Qimou (Mo Fu’s old name) was deeply intrigued by Chinese painting when he was young. The strong obsession for literature and poetry inspired him to become fully passionate about artistic composition. Though he graduated from the Southwest University of Political Science & Law majoring in law, which seems to have little connection with art, his pursuit of being an artist has never stopped.

He Qimou has a full time job as a public servent. As an artist, he has held several solo exhibitions and taken part in a few joint ones in Guangzhou. In 2015, his solo exhibition was held at the Guangdong museum of modern art and widely praised.

His pen name Mo Fu literally means ‘the man of ink’. Learning from Chen Fang, a master in Chinese painting, Mo Fu is dedicated to Chinese painting. He painted in brushstrokes that are vigorous and bold, with a poetic, magnificent and typical northern characteristic that is conveyed from the painting, showing a strong aesthetic appeal to the audience. Afterwards, Mo Fu started to study oil painting from Tang Jixiang and professor Zhang Yuan from CAFA.

Work No.3, oil on canvas with synthetic materials, 2m*2m 

With over a decade’s hard-work, Mo Fu is the first to create an organic combination of gel, ink and color, in search of the infinite possibility of synthetic materials to create unexpected beauty of natural changes.

Mo Fu thinks that artists are different from craftsmen because of their ability to create, express their own thoughts through their unique language of art instead of merely imitating. Mo Fu believes that it is crucial to keep on searching for the exclusive language of art of his before people can precisely interpret his art.

Though Mo Fu has been, as he described, “tiling his field of art” for over two decades, he is prone to staying humble and hungry exploring his unique expression of art. “The process of life is nothing but climbing up and we must persist in struggling, like ants do, between hope and despair though knowing the dream is yet unlikely to be realized,” said Mo Fu.

Years gone by, oil on canvas with synthetic materials, 1m*2m

Mastering both Chinese and western painting techniques, Mo Fu’s artworks convey a sense of harmony by using oil paints painting in Chinese brushstrokes. His works are sublime in aesthetic perspectives. One of his works, the Vicissitude series, was collected in the Macau International famous oil painters exhibition.

In January 2020, Mo Fu, along with Zhang Yule and other 7 artists, held a joint exhibition of oil paintings at Guangzhou Xiaozhou art area. Mo’s unique style of utilizing synthetic materials in his artworks has been spoken highly of by Ken Cadwallader, president of Oil Painters of America. Mo Fu and Cadwallader will hold a joint exhibition this year, entitled Brotherhood: Art Across Boundaries.

Written by Yongjia Lin

Edited by Monica Liu