In her spare time, Gu strolls around her village taking photos for inspiration. Rural village life scenes are her forever topic. Her works feature bold colors and big-headed figures. Over the past three decades, Gu never gave up painting, and gradually found her artistic style. "It was based on my fishing experience with my father when I was eight." The painting was exhibited in a local art show. "I drew a shrimp, swimming among a school of fish in water grass," she recalled. Gu, who had never picked up a paint brush before, applied for the program in 1987. In the 1980s the local government launched a program to teach techniques to farmers in order to carry forward the tradition and to provide a stimulating hobby for farmers to kill time during slack seasons. Silkscreen block printing is a folk art popular in Chedun Town. Figures and objects are drawn in a way that most people may consider childish, with straight thick lines, yet producing a strong visual effect. Rather than exploring modern urban reality, traditional rural themes, such as fishing, cloth dyeing, spinning, and market scenes, are preferred. Painters belonging to the "primitive camp" use striking colors. That is to say, if a painting has five colors, it needs five blocks. The image is printed on a transparent sheet and placed on the wet emulsion so only the uncovered emulsion dries, creating the stencil. One of the more common methods of creating a silk-screen stencil is through negative images. Born on the Huangpu River, she drew inspiration from nature, her daily life and childhood experience.Ĭaptivating are the scenes she revives – the celebration of the harvest, farmers toiling in rice paddies, locals fishing in a pond, chasing a lost pig and weaving on a spinner. "I paint where I've grown up and what I've observed," Gu said. Old villagers sit along the field chatting happily, while kids play hide-and-seek in the woods. Her picture depicts large patches of rice fields covered with golden ears of wheat, around which farmers drive tractors for a bumper harvest. "What I've depicted in my work, 'The Countryside is Full of Beauty,' is my birthplace, the place in the world with which I am most familiar." "I'm in luck," said the resident of Chedun Town with a big smile. Gu Peilian, a 64-year-old farmer, never thought that her silkscreen block print painting would be shortlisted for the National Exhibition of China's Farmer Paintings – one of three works selected from Shanghai. Gu Peilian, a 64-year-old farmer, recently saw her silkscreen block print painting be shortlisted for the National Exhibition of China's Farmer Paintings.
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