I am a multidisciplinary artist (oil painter, photographer, writer, poet) and art scholar. My work, and life, is deeply inspired by my lifelong immersion into Asia. My name as an artist, art critic, art scholar is known in the Asian artworld (包德真) and in Europe.
Since the beginning of the 1990s I have been building an archive of photographs from China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Tibet, Xinjiang, Korea, Japan.
Specializing in traditional ink painting and its aesthetic principles (the use of 'emptiness', 'floating perspective', 'movement of energy') and contemporary art from China while being trained in oil painting in Europe balances my work between East and West. My artwork is known for its sketchy bold brushstrokes. I like to use the color 青, the color of mountains in the distance. 青 is sometimes translated as ‘blue’, sometimes as ‘green’, and sometimes as ‘black’. As soon as I pick up the brush I disappear into the mountains transferring the tranquility around me onto the canvas; I splash waves into spacious seascapes, compose cloudscapes, or try to grasp the frenetic atmosphere of big cities.
I am interested in power (post/de/re)colonization and decolonialty, in how power works through myth building, the readiness of masses to blindly serve and follow, in bottom-up dynamics and in the tipping point - a split second in which everything turns around and mighty power falls into pieces, the point of no return - and in the role of art and cultural memory. My series Strong Women | Shifting Power explores political, academic, philosophical, and gender power shifts. I am also interested in death and ancestor worship; in a holistic world people don't disappear into another realm when they die; they stay here with us.
This site lists a selection of oil paintings I have created since 2011 (a major turning point in my life) and exhibitions from recent years.
My artwork is held in private collections in the US, UK, Sweden, Belgium, The Netherlands, France, Germany, Chile, Hong Kong, and China.
I am a regular guest of national and international media (television, radio, art magazines).
My literary and critical work is listed on jeanneboden.com.
I follow: Asian Art ArchiveChina Global South Project China Project