Shen Jiawei's Tower of Babel

 

Author’s words

He became famous overnight in that crazy era. With quiet fame and accomplishments in his motherland of China, he crossed the sea to the strange continent and started all over again. Under the sunlight of the southern hemisphere and the wavesound of the Pacific Ocean, he had portrayed many characters including a Denmark princess, an Australian Prime Minister, and a Roman Pope. These portraits were found in the National Portrait Gallery in Canberra. Eventually settling down in a beautiful seaside artist's village, he lives a peaceful life. However, in order to fulfil his dream, whilst in his seventies, he spent several years creating a giant historical oil painting with more than 450 characters. The painting is 7 metres high, over 20 metres long. In his own way, he attempts to portray the true appearance of the characters which have been obscured for a long time. With his own understanding he displayed that bloody human history bewitched in a utopian dream. He set a goal and devoted himself to accomplishment of this huge project in order to "devote it to himself and also the world." He is the famous painter Shen Jiawei. In his studio which was specially designed and built for his masterpiece, Shen Jiawei was interviewed by myself. Although facing a painter, I felt like I was facing a scholar - a scholar obsessed with history. With history, everyone has their own perspective, their own opinions, and their own prejudices. In a trance, I saw a lonely treasure hunter, honest and persistent, lingering in the jungle, confused by the mists and clouds of history. The following article was written after a few interviews with Jiawei. The full text is more than 8,000 words in Chinese.

Shen Jiawei's Tower of Babel

by Christine Guo

1. Jiawei and History

In the first interview with Shen Jiawei, I only managed to ask my first question, Jiawei’s response was like a surging river. He spoke without a break for more than 20 minutes.  He finally realised and said: "Christine, I have answered many questions on your list .”

At noon, we had lunch together. Jiawei appeared to be in deep thought as his mind was still pondering the interview and was reluctant to come back to the present. This is quite similar to his relationship with history: once he is in it, he devotes himself completely and nothing  can distract him. 

Jiawei loves reading, especially history. In his large private library, over 9000 books are neatly categorised and stacked on the bookshelves from floor to his 7.5 metre high ceiling. 30% are art books, but more than 50% are history books.

When it comes to other topics, he will answer quickly, concisely, and directly, but his tone is somewhat perfunctory and does not arouse much interest. But when he talked about a particular period of history, his eyes lit up and shined behind his glasses, his body leaned forward, his speaking speed increased significantly, and his whole persona came alive! It seems that only this particular topic can arouse his passion and enthusiasm and gives purpose to his being.

The following is a small example showing Jiawei’s understanding of a particular period of history.

One day,  I forwarded him a short video labelled "First Congress of Comintern" through wechat. Iin no time at all, he sent an errata message back to me:

 

"There is no photographic material of the First Congress of Comintern remaining. The First Congress was opened in Moscow in March 1919. This video is from the Second Congress of Comintern held in July 1920 at the Tafrida Palace in Petrograd, that is why they were all in summer clothes.The video also includes a group photo of representatives of the Fourth Congress held in the autumn of 1922, but with the CCP left wings representatives Chen Duxiu, Liu Renjing and Qu Qiubai on the left removed."

 

He also attached the two old photos, one is a group photo of the original four representatives, and the other is a partial photo with the three persons disappearing because they were cut out.

His old friend Chen Danqing once commented on him:

 

"I don't know what were the exact factors that directed Jiawei's all creative desire towards "history", but I generally know why some people (some characters) in our generation are particularly eager to understand the truth in history when entering their prime years, especially after going abroad."

 

Danqing is right. Jiawei is more than just longing, but obsessed with that specific history and those characters in that history. Reading and exploring that history is his greatest hobby. This hobby made him indulged, happy and fascinated and made him a willing hostage. He was attracted by the various hidden paths and buried secrets of the past in an historical jungle, and was unwilling and unable to come out. He endlessly searched for clues about the buried, obscured, and disguised characters scattered in the dark corners of the deep forest, and kept applying his imagination to restore and piece together what he thought was the truth. Like a child who refuses to stop playing hide-and-seek, he lingers and enjoys it forever.

Over the past few decades, he has turned himself into a historian among painters, or a painter among historians. He mostly uses his paintbrush to complete super essays one after another of his own propositions. So, he put the history he believed into his painting works, also he hid his unique corrections, restorations and comments of that particular history of his own  selection, interweaving and presentation of characters in the huge paintings full of characters with almost no blank space left. All these are there, waiting for viewers known or unknown in the coming age, to interpret and decipher.

2. Love and Style

As a child, Shen Jiawei was so fascinated by Soviet children's books and the illustrations in them that he turned all his pocket money into books. He painted the Kremlin, thinking it was the most beautiful building in the world. The exotics as well as the joys and sorrows of the characters in the books are all in his thoughts and dreams.

In interviews, he told the stories with great relish about his beloved Soviet writer Gerda and his books, as if counting his treasure. It was these books and their illustrations that inspired his love of figures and painting. Arkady Gaidar joined the Red Army as a boy and became a famous writer of children's literature in the Soviet Union in the 1930s. He died on the battlefield during World War II. He was a life role model for little Jiawei. Shen Jiawei's hobby was born from this, and his dream began here.

 

Pursuing his dream, at the age of 22-year-old Jiawei went to the Beidahuang Production and Construction Corps with his longing for a military career like Gaidar. He was selected into the art creation class of the Corps. Here, he participated in the National Art Exhibition with his oil painting "Standing Guard for Our Great Motherland" (hereinafter referred to as "Standing Guard"). This painting attracted the favour of Mao's wife Jiang Qing, and with top authorities his painting was published in the national newspaper and magazines and spread into the homes of millions  of families. While Shen Jiawei became famous overnight in China he himself was dragged into that history.

The painting "Standing Guard" first brought him glory in the National Gallery of Art, then experienced vicissitudes, relegated to limbo, and was stuffed under the bed to collect dust for several years. 

One day, the owner took it out from the dim corner, removed the dust, and returned it to the stage of history. Because of its outstanding historical value, this painting was exhibited twice in high-profile art galleries on the other side of the Pacific ocean. Finally, bearing the marks of time, it was successfully auctioned for $7.5 million. According to experts, the price seems to be below its historical value.

For Shen Jiawei, the first seed of creating group portraits of “red” historical figures came from the book: "Red Star over China" by Edgar Snow. The book, which he came across in 1967, gave him a unique influence. In the following years, he maintained a rebellious and critical mentality towards the so-called revolutionary historical paintings during the Cultural Revolution, both in terms of style and content. He looked forward to painting the historical paintings he had in mind one day. Like that generation of youngsters, deprived of the opportunity to study at the Academy of Fine Arts during the Cultural Revolution, he had to study diligently on his own.

The earliest inspiration for Shen Jiawei's historical group portrait style came from Jiang Zhaohe's "The Refugees". In 1982, Shen Jiawei was admitted to the first training class of the Oil Painting Department of the Central Academy of Fine Arts. When he saw the original "Refugee" for the first time at an art exhibition, he was very excited. The corridor-like pattern and structure of figure arrangement gave him very important inspiration.

 

The refugee by Jiang Zhaohe ，1941-1943年

Later, he said: "Starting from ‘Red Star over China’, my own development or creation which is different from "The Refugee " and Russian style paintings are mainly in two points. First, it completely breaks the restriction in time and space. In my works, the relationship between the figures stems from the same occasion, but actually from different times and places in reality. Second, it mainly focuses on elite figures with historical records, prompting the audience to enter the real history. But my own model has been formed from "Red Star over China".

Red Star over China by Shen Jiawei, 

"In the composition of "Tower of Babel'', I departed from the horizontal expansion pattern of "The Refugee'' and began to superimpose figures upwards, but I retained the method of figure structuring, composition and discription that started with "Red Star'' and based on photos of real historical figures. This is my original way which has been kept and developed till now.`

Part of "Tower of Babel" (draft on wall)

In the preface to Shen Jiawei's new book, Chen Danqing made a very clear evaluation of Shen Jiawei's style:

"The method is basiclly in Soviet-style, mixed with a large number of Western European painting techniques; The large-scale conception is monumental, mural-like, but still in a single piece; finally, with Jiawei’s own hands (semi-consciously) the traditional functions of historical paintings undergoing a special transformation that is hard to define: there are no longer expectations of the public nature of historical paintings, hence,  no more requirements of the consent and approval from the public. Its themes, the reason and manner of its narration, in particular its standing, and above all else, it comes entirely from the author, Jiawei himself.”

 

Danqing Indeed understands Jiawei well. In the 18th and 19th centuries, in historical paintings, idealisation and idolisation techniques were applied to curdle historical moments, which once took the lead in the art world. However, they gradually declined under the impact of the rich and flexible expressions of modern art and film art, and have almost disappeared. But Shen Jiawei doesn't care about this. He alone ploughs on in this somewhat deserted field that is generally regarded as a flower of the past.

He lets the characters in the paintings transcend time and space, with almost no blank spaces,  bursting into the eyes of the audience with lifelike appearances, life-size dimensions, overwhelming scale and shocking density. In his way, he subverts and restores the ideologically solidified images of revolutionary historical figures and the Cliché of historical painting. He hides his personal historical commentary in the interweaving and selection of characters. Such efforts are clearly visible in his massive masterpieces one after another, and have evolved into the unique style of Shen Jia's historical paintings.

Part of Shen Jiawei's "Brothers and Sisters" (photographed by Zhejia)

In "Red Star over China '', he tried to restore the original looks of historical figures, and his style began to take shape. In ‘Brothers and Sisters’, he broke the boundaries of time, space and party camps, and his style became mature. In "Tower of Babel '', he tried to break through the sole piece paradigm mentioned by Danqing. In the largest main painting, he put his own selections of masterpieces and sculptures in art history on the structure of the Tower of Babel. The works constitute an exhibition spectacle in which the Tower occupies the painting, in which the Tower contains the paintings. These are Shen Jiawei's attempts to break through and develop his personal paradigm. In this masterpiece, which consists of four large paintings, he tried to push his historical painting style to the extreme extentension to what he could think of and achieve in his own reality.

3. The historical painting

In 1977, he worked as an Stage artist in the Forward Art Troupe of the People's Liberation Army where he had chances to read Soviet magazines. In the Soviet magazine named "Spark", there was an oil painting with the scene of Red Army generals and conference representatives standing on the steps when the Soviet Union was founded. This initiated the idea for Jiawei to paint all the Chinese Red Army generals of "Red Star over China" in a masterpiece. But it took Shen Jiawei ten years to truly enter into the creation of this painting.

In 1987, he finally completed "Red Star over China". This large-scale oil painting of 11 metres long, containing 124 figures, opened the way for Shen Jiawei to create large-scale group portraits of historical figures. It took twenty years from the first seeds to take root，　 then blossom and eventually bear fruit. He originally planned to continue painting but his life took a turn.

In 1989, he moved to Australia. To earn a living,  he had to put aside his beloved historical paintings. Like many Chinese artists, he started earning his living in Australia by drawing portraits on the street. In the following years, he painted thousands of heads of various colours, ethnic groups, ages and backgrounds. In his own words, "I have painted people from all over the world." He was afraid that his paintings would be Cliché, so he took every painting seriously. Several years of practice have consolidated and sharpened his ability in character description. His portraits have been shortlisted for the Australian Archibald Prize exhibition 14 times, establishing his reputation in the field of portraiture, so that Australian Prime Minister Howard, Pope Francis, Princess Mary of Denmark and other dignitaries commissioned him for portraits.

left : 2013年  Shen Jiawei "The People's Pope" 2013

Right: Met with Pope Francis in the Vatican in 2014. The ladies in the middle were the Governor-General of Australia and Mrs. Shen – artist Wang Lan

In 2005, Shen Jiawei painted a portrait of Princess Mary of Denmark. In 2011, the artist and the subject reunited in front of the painting.

As one of Australia's top portrait painters, six of his works are collected in the National Portrait Gallery and the Federal Parliament Building in Canberra; a total of 18 of his works are contained in the National Museum of China, the National Art Museum of China and the Chinese Revolutionary Military Museum in Beijing. His portrait of Pope Francis is collected at the Vatican.

In 2009, Shen Jiawei painted a portrait of Australian Prime Minister Howard

In 1994 the Australian Catholic Church had its first saint, Sister Mary MacKillop. The state established a one-time art award for this. Jiawei seized the opportunity and won the Mary MacKillop Art Award and $25,000 and was interviewed by Pope John Paul II. Until then, he finally returned to the path of creating historical paintings in his new continent.

Marzy Mackillop, 1995

In 1996, Shen Jiawei finally returned to the creation of group portraits of historical figures that he had long-lost. Invited by the chairmanship of the board of directors of the Queen Victoria Building (QVB) in Sydney, he painted a series of historical paintings for the QVB, which were hung in the building, known for its classic style and rich history, right in the heart of Sydney, until it changed hands.

After that, under an invitation,  he created "Modka", which depicts a group of portraits of Malaysian historical figures. His wife, artist Wang Lan, participated in the layout of this painting and personally completed the sacred bird part of the painting. Jiawei also invited his friend Wang Xu to join this huge project. In two years the three artists cooperately completed the huge painting of nearly 35 square metres with 260 figures. For this, they visited Malaysia specifically to learn about this unfamiliar country. During this trip, they had a rather unusual experience: a long meeting with Chen Ping, the general secretary of the Communist Party of Malaya, which had a significant impact on Jiawei. In the same year, a film about Shen Jiawei was broadcast on the Australian national television station SBS. In the film,  Jiawei looked back on his sixty years of life.

 

"Merdeka" was quite successful in Malaysia, but it also made Shen Jiawei regretful, and this regret gave birth to a wish. "I came to Australia and was called to paint a large painting of Malaysia. The painting was completed well. But I have been preparing for Chinese history for so many years and have a very thorough understanding of it, but I have no chance to paint. When I arrived in Australia, I had to survive and integrate into the mainstream of Australia. I have gone a long way to find the starting point for my career in Australia. Now I suddenly feel that I still owe China something. All this makes me want to do something for China."

Unlike Chinese domestic artists within the system, overseas artists do not have an institutional salary. Without donations and sponsorships, they must be self-sufficient. In order to fulfil his dream, Jiawei used the income from portraits to support his large-scale historical painting project. On the other side of the ocean from his motherland, with his own lonely journey he had been repaying himself-set debt and fulfilled his long-cherished wish. As a result, there was an upgraded version of "Red Star" called "Brothers and Sisters". The painting is 33 metres long, nearly 2 metres high, and has 460 historical figures. It took him eight years to complete.

Shen Jiawei, Shen's Brothers and Sisters Part 1: Revolution (2010-2012), features 128 figures

Years of extensive and in-depth study of historical books and biographies have given Shen Jiawei an increasingly strong desire to comment and narritive on history. So in his paintings, Gorbachev and the Pope met under the heaven to discuss "Absolute Truth", and Mao Zedong met with Nixon in the "Chariot Picture" of the Tang Dynasty. 

The leaders and dignitaries of the "Third World '' were queuing up, and a skeleton suddenly appeared at the venue. These are all sketches of Jiawei's historical commentary, and the peak of Jiawei's commentary is the "Tower of Babel '' he is currently painting. In his own words, he used this set of paintings to build a second monument to the globle utopian movement that had a huge influence in human history.

In 1920, at the invitation of Lunacharsky, the People's Commissar for Enlightenment of Lenin's government, Soviet avant-garde artist Vladimir Tatlin designed the Monument to the Third International, also known as "Tatlin's Tower", which became a world-famous art monument. A landmark work in history. Over the past 100 years, Tatlin's Tower has been copied by many artists around the world. Models of the Tatlin Tower have been found in many places, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Stockholm, Sweden, the Tretyakov Museum in Moscow, the Pompidou Center in Paris, the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney and the Royal Academy of Arts in London. Shen Jiawei also paid his respects to Tatlin with this particular "Tower of Babel".

Left: Russian 2000 commemorative stamp featuring Tatlin's Tower (Tower of Babel)

Right: The Tower of Babel designed by Tatlin of the Third International in 1920

4. "Tower of Babel" and the New House

The design height of "Tower of Babel" exceeds that of most existing warehouses. It was difficult to find a suitable opportunity and venue to display such huge paintings. To this end, Shen Jiawei auctioned many of his artworks including the famous "Standing Guard" and also completed many commissioned portraits. It took him more than ten years to finally raise the fund to build his new house. It contains their new home, his private library, the new studio of  his wife Wang Lan, and most, most importantly, Jiawei's dedicated studio where the entire "Tower of Babel" can be hung.

The three tallest paintings of "Tower of Babel" are 7.2 metres high, and the new studio is 7.5 metres high, which fits perfectly. Mr. Shen's planning was impeccable. The "Tower of Babel" series will be created in the new studio. After completion, they will be exhibited in the same place. At this time, the studio will become a tailor-made gallery, one that he will curate and manage himself. The exhibition site will never be dismantled. In his mind, these scenes were clearly visible.

On the main wall, there would be the main painting "Utopia" which is made up of 6m x 6m, a total of 36 pieces of panels with 1.2 metre in both length and width. The blueprint of the painting is based on the masterpiece "Tower of Babel'' by the Dutch master Bruegel the Elder, plus the addition of the Tatlin Tower. The body and background of the tower are decorated with a large number of copies of famous paintings and sculptures.

"Tower of Babel" by Dutch Artist Pieter Bruegel the Elder

The painting on the wall opposite "Utopia" is called "Saturnos" and is composed of 6 x 3, a total of 18 horizontal panels of the same size. On the two side walls are "Internationale" and "Gulag" respectively, each composed of 3 x 6 vertical panels, a total of 18 panels. These three entire walls are densely covered with historical figures carefully selected by Shen Jiawei. 

  

It has to be said that Lao Shen's plan not only caused a lot of trouble for himself, but also for his wife. For the new house, his wife Wang Lan, also an artist who had never managed a construction project,  had to serve as a project supervisor. She had worked hard for several years before it was finally completed and moved into a new home. She had been through lots of difficulties and troubles in so many tiny but important things. Pursuing perfection, she often couldn't help but roll up his sleeves and do it by herself. This is a hard job which significantly delayed many of her own art jobs. But Wang Lan knew her husband well. Even the 9 strongest cows couldn't stop what Lao Shen wanted. Lao shen means Old Shen - the way she called her husband. Not only would she not stop him, she would help him build the house he wanted, and then let him fiddle with it.

During the quiet time of the pandemic lockdown, Shen Jiawei devoted himself to building “the tower”. When the lockdown ended, "Utopia", the largest main painting in "Tower of Babel",  was basically completed and was just waiting to be put on the wall. The other three parts  are with a total of more than 400 characters. The black and white effects have been done and are just waiting for colouring. Shen Jiawei said that the entire project is already halfway through and it will take another three years to fully complete.

5. Metaphor of "Tower of Babel"

Back in 2001, while reading the story of the Tower of Babel in the Bible, Jiawei related the famous argument between China and the Soviet Union when he was a child,  a flash of inspiration came to him, which was the source of these paintings. 4 years later, the first draft started;  another 4 years, the second draft started; then 9 years later, the large draft started , that was in 2018. It is said Hu Ybang had written a letter to Hua Luogeng in 1982 to discuss the construction of the Tower of Babel. 

＂Jehovah says:

 

And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.

And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded.

And the LORD said, Behold, the people as one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.

Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech.

So the LORD scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city.

Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the LORD did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the LORD scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth. "

 

——Chapter 11 of "The Bible, Old Testament, and Genesis"

In the story of the Tower of Babel, God confuses human language and scatters people all over the world just because "human beings will be able to do anything in the future." This is puzzling and has been interpreted in various ways. The more concentrated one is that God is afraid that human beings will not be able to control their overflowing desires and will be daring to do things they shouldn't do without knowing the consequences. Indeed, once human desires are rampant, Pandora's box opens, that is, the human heart is the devil,  which is the source of countless human tragedies. However, although God disrupted human language and scattered people into different places, the evil of human nature has not been eradicated and can only be suppressed in some circumstances. So why does God use language and distance to create such a barrier for humans? Still puzzled. 

One thing is certain: the Tower of Babel failed to allow humans to reach heaven. Instead, it worried God and caused humans to lose communication and cooperation with each other. Then this “beautiful” wish that claimed reaching heaven causes human beings to lose each other and brings in isolation and separation in the world.

What does Shen Jiawei want to say by using the metaphor of the Tower of Babel? Is it Utopia? “Utopia” originally appeared in the Latin title of a book written by Thomas More, which fictionalised a small island and the country on the island was a fictional ideal society. ust as sailors can't resist the seductive song of Sarennis at sea, so the grand picture of an ideal society always fascinates humans. But how did that beautiful and ethereal singing turn into a trap, and how did mankind's grand ideals turn into a violent robbery? It is said that the imaginary heaven cannot accommodate subtle humanity, so why doesn’t God give people pure and sincere humanity? Returning to the topic of the Tower of Babel, why is the human Tower of Babel not tolerated by God? These are questions not only from Mr. Shen but also from mankind.

6. Shen Jiawei’s "Tower of Babel"

Mr. Shen once explained the overall intention and concept of "Tower of Babel":

 “The main painting"Utopia" depicts the ideal part of the international communist movement, while the other three paintings "Saturnos", "Internationale" and "Gulag" depicts its practical part, which together constitute a visual depiction of a major theme in human history of the 20th century AD. Somehow, there is still a gap in this field. I am here to fill it.”

Regarding the main painting "Utopia", Shen Jiawei explained:

"In this large painting artistic images are adopted to convey the ideal picture of the world in the minds of the leaders and participants of Lenin's generation of the international communist movement. The adopted artistic images here are not original to the author, but  mainly come from the world class artist of Lenin's contemporaries. Most of them are communists, such as Léger and Matisse in France, Picasso in Spain, Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, and David Alfaro Siqueiros in Mexico ( the last two both had served as General Secretary of the Mexican Communist Party), Vladimir Tatlin, Kazimir Malevich, and Konstantin Yuon of Soviet Russia, as well as Marc Chagall and Wassily Kandinsky who worked for the revolutionary government. There are also a few second-generation artists such as Spanish Communist Party member Antoni Tapies, Soviet painters Moiseenko Evsey Evseevich, Geliy Korzhev, sculptor George Frangulyan, etc. There are also paintings and sculptures by artists from as far away as Europe, such as the shape of the Tower of Babel, which came from a Dutch painter in the 16th century. Bob Rogel's masterpiece "Tower of Babel".

 The Tower of Babel (detail; 1563), Pieter Bruegel the Elder. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna. Photo: © KHM-Museumsverband

The above statement about Utopia is incomplete. In the main painting "Utopia", Shen Jiawei used his tireless brush to place more than 90 works of art masters on the 9-story tower, in the sky, and in front of the tower. This is a comprehensive inventory and summary of artworks from that specific period by his own perception and understanding. What the viewer is facing will be an alternative and condensed exhibition held by Mr. Shen in one large art piece, exhibiting what he considered the most influential and representative visual images and image expressions from that bloody era of mankind.  Whether well known or unknown, the chosen  artists who are famous in the art world come from different countries, races, and religious backgrounds. Their expressions are different, but they all have one thing in common that is not so noticed by most people. They were all confused and influenced by the mirage and siren song of the largest utopian movement in human history, and were marked by that unique era. This observation from a special perspective undoubtedly allows the viewer to follow his gaze, trance back to that specific historical time and space, transcend the limitations of nationality and race, and dialogue with those masters. The curator of this alternative exhibition is none other than Jiawei himself.

In contrast to the magnificent Tower of Babel are the densely packed figures in the other three large paintings. Some are instantly recognizable, while others seem familiar. The last time I saw it, it was still in the black-and-white sketching stage, but the desolation and heaviness in every stroke made people unable to escape. The solemn eyes, the shadow of death, the frightened expression, and the desperate cry are all clearly visible. Language becomes ineffective in front of these pictures, and colours pale in front of these characters. And viewers who have some understanding of the past and fate of these characters will even sigh, where are the souls of those sailors who were seduced by the song of the Sarennis?

7. A Special Gift to the World

Shen Jiawei spent half his life completing one huge project after another by himself. He studied hundreds or even thousands of characters in the painting one by one, not only looking for image data, but also well known with the character's historical background, personal history, surrounding environment, character's story and personality. Based on these, a small draft is conceived, and then a large draft, and then he himself portrays his objects in the studio day after day. His friends all know that the time he has spent reading books and researching online far exceeds the time he spends creating on canvas.

He alone had been doing this for many years. It was somehow like the Foolish Old Man moving mountains (a well-known fable from Chinese mythology about the virtues of perseverance and willpower), but he didn't see it that way. He believes that this is his calling and must be fulfilled. As for his investments, commitments, hard work, frustration, satisfaction or even ecstasy in this, only he himself is aware.

 

However, among these masterpieces, only his "Red Star Shining on China" was collected by the National Art Museum of China after winning the National Art Exhibition Award. His "Brothers and sisters" is still owned by Shen Jiawei himself. As for "Tower of Babel", which is currently half completed, he does not even consider selling the painting. He said, "I want to give it to myself and leave it to the world." To the question: "Isn't money important?" He asked back "What do I need money for? Money is only useful when it can be exchanged for freedom." This is an answer - a very Shen Jiawei’s answer!