Portrait of Bing Shi by Andy Hall
by Paul Halas
For all its many faults social media sometimes provides us with gems, and the paintings of artist Bing Shi have for us been one of the highlights on Facebook this year. Working in oils, with bold, sweeping brushstrokes that fail to mask a deep understanding of form, and using a highly personal palette, Bing paints highly intimate portraits and atmospheric landscapes, although his ‘showering’ series is perhaps his most striking work.
Bing teaches at a university in London. Phil Hall and I were lucky enough to meet up with him in the café at The National Theatre one afternoon after work. The Observer photographer, Andy Hall took photos of Bing Shi before the interview began.
For all his talent, and qualifications that stretch far outside the world of painting, we found Bing very approachable and extremely self-effacing. In an art-world where anything goes, Bing’s painting is entirely figurative, self-sufficient and distinctive. There may be parts of it that resemble certain painters from the past in some ways, but one sees that everything Bing paints adheres to his own personal vision.
When we view an artist’s work there’s almost always a compulsion to compare it to another’s, or to define it within a genre. We asked, therefore, whether this urge to pigeon-hole people’s work was something that irritated Bing.
‘I don’t mind it, actually. I’m a totally self-taught artist, and sometimes I have a problem. I have five or six successful paintings, after that I fail and then I need a change, I need to try something else. Then, if someone says my work looks Impressionist, or post-Impressionist ,or whatever, that can be useful to me.’
Bing explained how constructive criticism is important to him. It helps him progress as an artist. Not being formally trained as an artist he has had to find his own way, but he welcomes input from others.
Although not from an artistic background, Bing says he was always interested in art – all the arts, not simply painting – but family pressure compelled him to take a more conventional route in life. He was born and grew up in a small town in China, and as a child he mainly lived with his grandparents. His tendency to draw throughout school classes failed to prevent him from excelling academically, and it was that intellectual talent that helped him move on from a background in which there was virtually no access to the arts – small town China – to university, where at least a limited amount of literature and art from abroad was accessible. Thus, he was able to follow his literary, ballet, music and art interests – although only those of a ‘safe’ and conservative nature were permitted in China at that time. Freedom of movement in China was restricted by household registration, but success in education was one route out to the wider world. Bing went on to take a state job in Beijing, which led to an economics degree and eventually a professorship. It was at the height of China’s Open Door policy in 2003, when he was thirty-four years of age, Bing came to England to do his PhD. He stayed
At last Bing was able to pursue all his artistic interests. Hitherto, English language literature had been mainly the Classics, and in painting Impressionism had been considered daringly Avant Garde. From having a great interest in and love of art – but only from a limited variety of sources – he now had access to it all. Naturally, some of it seemed quite alien, but he quickly learned how art, and painting in particular, had developed and evolved, and why it simply had to continue to progress or it would stagnate and atrophy. From Monet to Hockey and beyond. He went from detesting the almost grotesque exaggerations of Lucien Freud to rating him as perhaps his favourite painter – and finding the beauty in his corporeal subjects. It wasn’t until he was in his forties, however, that Bing started to paint and find his own way as an artist. He was given great encouragement by his partner, and also, following a chance meeting, a member of the Royal Birmingham Society of Artists, who took an interest in his work and was able to give him much constructive and positive criticism.
An early work is his Chinese street scene, based on the village where his grandparents apparently wished to have their ashes buried. This very personal painting already shows the direction Bing is taking as a painter, although the signature boldness of his brushwork is still in the developmental stage. It also hints at his complicated relationship with the country of his birth.
Bing also cut his artistic teeth on a series of paintings based on and around Birmingham’s latticework of canals – largely because he spends lots of time on a narrow boat, and this was the scene of some of their earliest trips. It’s a theme Bing has returned to several times, and these paintings contain some of his most accomplished work. It’s tempting to say that if Alfred Sisley had lived for another half century this is the kind of work he would’ve done.
Water is a major feature in many of Bing’s paintings, notably his ‘Showering’ series. ‘It’s all part of how we look at the world, how we see things. We’re not like a camera, we don’t see everything, and we all have a particular perspective. We all filter things out and we all see what we want to see. It’s a process in which we summarise things. That’s what I do when I paint water, I focus on the parts I want to show.’ Although this sounds like a reductive process – sometimes Bing uses no more than two colours in his water depictions – the effect is nonetheless one of completeness.
The brushstrokes in the ‘showering’ series give the subjects great physicality, while at the same time the water is perfectly translucent as it runs off bodies and shower-glass and distorts one’s vision in an utterly real way. Equally, thanks to Bing’s palette (for instance, just his various shades of purple can convey both very hot and freezing temperatures) one can almost feel the heat or coldness of the water. Another thing that stands out in this series – and the most successful of Bing’s other portraits – is a great sense of intimacy with his subject. There’s a terrific sense of connection in these, and candour. Bing pointed out that one is at one’s least guarded when subjected to the shock of hot or cold water – the reaction is involuntary – and that adds to the feeling of closeness. Bing’s showering paintings are highly intimate without ever being voyeuristic.
In order to succeed when making any portrait Bing finds it necessary to have a degree of connection with the sitter. ‘That reminds me, in the 1970s there was a ballerina, Natalia Makarova, most famous for playing Giselle, but the prima ballerina of the age. In an interview, she said she said she loved all her dancing partners when performing on the stage. I feel the same with painting, whether it’s with my partner, or friends, people I know already – even if I just met them, or am working from a photo – I have to make a connection.’ In a way it’s necessary to develop a sense of intimacy with the person, even if initially there was nothing. People he might not have felt anything for at the beginning of a portrait, he would grow to like. It’s a communication, even with people from very different groups and backgrounds, it builds a commonality. Finally, he falls in love with the figures he created in his portrait paintings.
Although he is self-taught, Bing doesn’t regret missing out on a formal art education. Nor does he think that artists who do take that route necessarily become over-tutored and formulaic. There are lessons and disciplines you have to learn, whichever path you take.
‘Whether you have been to art school or not there are some principles you need to know. I don’t teach art, I teach business management… business strategy… organisational behaviour, those things. To me, if you analyse painting, if you look at the overall procedure, it requires similar research.’ How did Rembrandt approach his subjects? Or Monet or van Gogh? What led them to develop their distinctive styles? How does Bing approach his subjects? What makes his style different from other artists?
Before starting to paint, before making your own art, there is a considerable amount of research to be done. Primary data one takes from life, but secondary data can come from sketches or other influences. You need to know a series of ground rules: composition, the warmness and coolness of colours, not to have multiple focal points, the need to understand the visual grammar of painting. What sort of approach will you take? Will you do abstract work? Impressionist? Expressionist? It’s entirely down to your research. In this way, Bing sees there are great similarities between the skills he acquired earlier in his life, in other words the subjects he still teaches, and those that are useful to him now as a painter.
His painting continues to develop. When he feels one approach is starting to grow a little stale, he’ll switch to another to refresh his thoughts. For example, he recently believed that he was tending to over-simplify his portraits, that he was in danger of getting into a rut, so he has moved on to landscapes for a while. When he returns to portraits, he’ll be able to look at his sitters with a reinvigorated eye. The process is ongoing.
While Bing’s most accomplished land- and cityscapes depict locations in Birmingham, Bing actually lives in Swindon and commutes to London once a week to teach. Like Birmingham, Swindon has a rich industrial heritage, but its history is built around the railways rather than the canals that he so loves to paint. Does this give him inspiration to paint in his home town? The answer is that although Swindon is surrounded by the most wonderful countryside, and lies not far from the beautiful Cotswolds, all its railway heritage leaves him rather cold. Railways are not his thing. ‘I did a couple of paintings of commuters on the London train, but I only showed their tiredness. The pressure they’re under, not enjoying anything.’ This may be due to Bing’s memories of rail travel back in China, three day journeys between his parents’ and grandparents’ homes in filthy steam trains, crowded carriages, benches designed for three people but with many more crammed onto them, not to mention others laid out along the train floors… Add travel sickness to the mix and the memories are not happy ones. The weekly commute between Swindon and London may not be so bad (although it can still be pretty wretched), but it stirs up some very negative feelings.
Bing sums up his attitude to his work and life: ‘What matters is the enjoyment of the moment. You should do what you like if you can – so what? I have a basic income from teaching; once you’ve passed away it’s not going to matter, is it?’
So, what Bing likes in life is to paint, and he has struck up a work-life balance that suits him perfectly. While he’s a highly professional artist, he laughs that not so many painters get rich through their artistic endeavours alone. Unless you’re Damien Hirst you’re going to find that the arts are always the poor cousin of business and commerce. For every painting he sells there’s a long list of items in the debit column that make it pretty much a labour of love. Which of course is exactly what it is.
There will be an exhibition of 15 of Bing’s paintings from 7th May to 8th June at the Royal Birmingham Society of Artists Gallery, 4 Brook Street, Birmingham B3 1SA. Bing will be giving a demonstration of his painting at the gallery at 2.00pm on 25th May.
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