From the Air China logo to the icon that twisted the Olympic rings into the image of a man doing taiji, Han Meilin’s visions are everywhere.
Now the famed, versatile and prolific artist who created some of the country’s most recognizable imagery will stage China’s largest-ever one-man art show at the China National Art Museum.
Han, in fact, will take over every exhibition hall to display more than 3,000 new pieces from December 31 through January 13.
His last solo event, a 1999 exhibition, lured more than 50,000 viewers, he predicts this one will be even bigger and more successful.
He didn’t even know if he will be alive to see it. Han, 65, is recovering from a major heart attack and bypass sur-gery earlier this year.
The artist says he still possesses the creative enthusiasm of a young man and his prime has yet to occur.
The works in show were created over the past two years by him and his assistants and students. They span a vast range of formats that include painting, calligraphy, sculpture, pottery, wax printing, grass weaving, bull skin tapestry, red sandalwood carving, bronze weaponry and clothwork tigers.
The display’s highlights include a series of calligraphic work called “Heavenly Characters,” bronzeware sculptures such as “Little Animals,” ink paintings of nudes, Junci porcelain works and Yixing-style purple clay teapots.
Junci is the oldest and one of the most important styles in Chinese porcelain art. Yixing teapot is an art from East China’s Jiangsu Province.
Many of the works weren’t made inside a Beijing studio but out in the countryside.
“I don’t like creating artistic works ‘behind closed doors,’” Han said.
Han led his 20-member group - including seven students - across China on a 30,000-kilometre mini-bus trek through eight provinces. They sought inspiration from local folk arts.
Viewers will be amazed by the range of Han’s versatility. “If an artist wants to keep developing, he should master different artistic genres - not only calligraphy, sculpture or wax printing but also music and literature,” he said.
A 1960 graduate of the Central Academy of Arts and Design, Han certainly takes his own advice.
In 1980, learning that no Chinese was invited to attend the international seminar on China’s porcelain kilns system held in New York, Han made dozens of trips to the five major porcelain kilns in China to acquire porcelain-making skills.
Now colossal sculptures designed by Han can be seen in many Chinese cities.
His granite sculpture of six tigers now stands in Dalian, a port city of Northeast China’s Liaoning Province. It is more than 43 metre long and weighs 4,800 tons.
His “Five-Dragon Clock Tower” ranked No 1 in the International Sculpture Competition organized by the Interna-tional Olympic Committee and the Atlanta Olympic Committee in 1996. It is now a permanent fixture in Atlanta’s Olympic Square.
Han’s creations are well-known even by those who don’t realize whose they are. He designed the much sought-after stamp for the Year of the Monkey in 1983 and the 1985 Panda stamp. The red phoenix logo for Air China and the taiji logo for the Beijing 2008 Olympics bid campaign also comes partly from his fertile mind. (The bid logo was co-created by designer Chen Shaohua.) Han has held several personal art exhibitions since 1979 in cities such as Beijing, Shenzhen, Hong Kong, Taipei, New York, Boston, Toronto, Singapore and Paris. New York City even honoured him by designating one day of his exhibit there, October 10, 1990, as the Han Meilin Day.
“I believe that Chinese artists can create work at the highest level if we can perfectly integrate indigenous art with contemporary concepts,” the artist said.
Han hopes his work appeals to ordinary people, not critics. Critics look at art pieces from the academic viewpoint and don’t take much interest in folk art elements, he griped.
Indeed, Han worries greatly about the future of Chinese folk arts.
“The market for traditional Chinese handicrafts keeps shrinking and many factories are facing bankruptcy,” he said.
Many traditional art works need a lot of handiwork, including lacquerware, wax printing, tie-dye and grass weaving articles.
But high prices for handmade products have scared away ordinary Chinese people. The old-fashioned designs of the traditional handicrafts don’t interest foreigners, either.
This is why Han is expanding beyond making his own art into an effort to rescue Chinese folk arts. He offers free training around the country in the technical aspects of these crafts.
His art studios, too, are efforts to impart wisdom. He opened his first in eastern Beijing in 1989, and now has sev-eral that include sites in Henan and Shanxi provinces and one in Shenzhen.
“My studios are far from enough to save folk art,” said Han, calling on more Chinese artists to join him in the cul-tural mission.
Han has drawn from his own life experience in his artistic career. During the “culture revolution” (1966-76), Han was forced to leave his post as a lecturer at his alma mater and to take up a job at a pottery workshop in East China’s Anhui Province. There, he suffered distress, imprisonment, insult, poverty, illness and separation from his family.
“Life with hardship is not always a bad thing for artists,” Han said, calmly recalling those nightmarish years. “The hard times in my life made my will power strong and served as a major motivation for my ceaseless artistic creation.” During his frequent journeys to rural areas across the country, Han, shocked by the vast rural poverty, began to donate schoolbags and sets of stationary to children there.

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