Oil painting – as an artistic medium – was originated in the West, and it was considered the carrier of Western visual cultures. While Chinese ink painting bears the responsibility of passing on a visual image of ancient China, oil painting plays a similarly important role in terms of representing Western values, philosophy and culture.

Whenever one culture is created within a nation, its tradition and identity will naturally form with features unique to the nation itself. As the culture of one nation communicates with those of the others, it will be further enriched and characterized by its contemporaneity. The national tradition and the contemporaneity of the culture are both uniform and contradictory: We inherit the long-standing traditions to maintain cultural identity, while we communicate cross-culturally to enrich ourselves with contemporaneity. Through the study of art history (or civilization), we can clearly observe the above features of an evolving culture. The East and West have a long history of intermingling with each other. Without compromising the original traditions respectively, they generate new cultural ideas that push the boundary of human civilization.

Till this day, oil painting – as a product of Western art and culture – has been fully accepted and well practiced by Chinese artists. It plays an indispensable role in the modernization of Chinese culture, carrying important meanings beyond being a mere artistic medium.

The kind of visual language that a painting carries should be kept up-to-date regardless of its cultural context. “Fusion-Contemporary Oil Painting Language Research Exhibition” is rooted in art history, observing the evolution of oil painting’s visual language over time. As the exhibited artworks reveal, the finale of an era breeds the preface of the next.