‘The Story of Trees’, A Duo Exhibition with Prof Zheng Qinyan at Dongyue Art Musuem.
This weekend we opened our very special exhibition at Dong Yue Art Museum on March 15th 2025. People often asked at the opening , how did we get to know each other? two very different artists , a highly respected and widely published academician from the Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA) Director of Art Education ( plus many other titles) and myself a foreign practitioner artist engaged in ecoliteracy.
Over the years we have met each other at DongYue Art Museum and I have long admired Zheng’s work. Her meticulous writings on heart Sutras, the Dao de Jing and other Buddhist texts merged with unexpected images of Trees connected with me in real and profound ways.
Zheng Qinyan and Niamh Cunningham at Dongyue February 2025
“The Face of Zen No. 4” Ink on paper 138cm×69cm Zheng Qinyan 2015
“The Face of Zen No. 2” Ink on paper 138cm×69cm Zheng Qinyan 2015
Last Summer we met again at a very different venue , an award ceremony for the 7th International environmental Children’s painting competition at the Song QingLing Future Theatre. It seemed our purpose and goal were aligned on at least a few levels. We both were working with on the concept that art and ecological awareness play vital roles in our current world and that we both connected trees as an important theme in our art making process and hence we began plans for ‘The Story of Trees ‘.
The ancient Daoist venue of Dongyue Art Museum was built on the grounds of a Yuan Dynasty temple to Lei Gong God of Thunder. It’s curator Mr Yuan QiuLai has played an important part of my life in China over the past dozen years hosting my first solo exhibition An Eastward Calling 2014. We also had three previous duo exhibitions with Chinese artists Reciprocal Plane with artist Huang A Zhong 2015, Infinite Entities Life and Nature with Geng Xin 2017, The Pattern that Connects with Ma Liangfen 2020 and Sino-Irish group exhibitions Meditations – IRISH WAVE 2015 and Odyssey the Return in 2019. Towards the last part of the opening reception , although it didn’t Thunder and Rain like it did just after for the solo exhibition in 2014 , this time it snowed.
Photo credit Bebe Zhao
photo credit Yong Chen
Three selected paintings and their tree stories . I currently gather Tree Stories on one minute videos but in 2020 I gathered short written texts.
Tree Climber 120 x100 acrylic on canvas Niamh Cunningham 2020
and
Strawhall Chestnut 100 x 120 oil on canvas Niamh Cunningham 2023/24
Tree Climber:
This was a story by forester Anna Finke who used to work with and Asian-Pacific Forest Management Network. In 2020 she submitted a written story on the quirky passion and joy she experienced when Climbing Trees.
Link to story Tree Climber
Piyo’s View ,50 x 70 , acrylic on canvas , Niamh Cunningham 2020
This story was submitted by Joshua who he tells of his son White Horse and a dog called Piyo, an old stray dog which was taken in by father and son. However the dog died a few months later and the son White Horse was broken hearted. But his father tried to console his son because Piyo was buried under the beautiful view of the hawthorne tree in their yard.
Link to story Hawthorne and Piyo’s view
The Second Beech sucrose process print 50 x50cm Niamh Cunningham 2018
This is a tree in the garden where I grew up in Carlow Ireland. There was another Copper Beech Tree which needed to be chopped down as it had already been dead for several years . Although the first Beech tree is gone , within my family it is still associated with the memory of my dear father.
Link The Beech Tree and the Academic
Tree Stories on Video:
At the right side of the courtyard is a long narrow gallery displaying the suspended monotypes from the previous weekend workshops. I consider this our Tree Story Community space.
It is with great pleasure that we screen tree stories on video from Ireland and China together in the side gallery. Some of these emerge from An Gairdin Beo Workshops 2023, Carlow Garden Festival 2023 and A4 artist residency in Chengdu 2024 .
#91 The Greatest Blessing caretaking for plants and animals is a blessing
#28 Wollemi Pine ‘…I am one of the oldest and rarest trees’
#49 Forest Bathing 1 ‘ …throw out your yoga mats and settle yourself into the ground
#50 Forest Bathing 2 ‘ you start to notice all the animals , the owls and the red squirrels
#73 The Missing Gorilla mistaken identity, one of the funny tree stories !
#79 Healers A story of healing and a love of trees
#97 A Tree Transplanted finding the same tree everywhere
#100 Euonymus acquifolium Plant Hunter
#103 Two Trees interdependent attachment, love and growth
# 9 Feeling Good – Tree Song a song of joy and spontaneity in Daizu language
# November 2020 Ladybird of Dongxiaokou , Dances with Trees
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Workshops for young learners
photo credit Huang Xinyi
Last weekend at DongYue art Museum I worked with the wonderful teachers Huang Xinyi and Song Dan from CAFA art Education and held workshops for younger students using eco friendly materials of traditional Chinese art , rice paper and Chinese water colour. We even experimented with home made plant based pigments and students weaved round frames made of willow twigs for the circle paintings.
All the paintings are themed on Trees and ecosystems that surround them. Students worked in small groups when making these monotype prints. I believe art making and art education provides great opportunities for multidisciplinary learning , eco literacy and also to develop skills for collaborative practice , all vital skills for our current world.
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An event like this can only happen with great support from so many people. Thank you artist / prof Zheng Qinyan for your wonderful art , precision to detail and engaging interactions , curator Yuan Qiu Lai for our long friendship and history of Sino-Irish art collaborations, to Mr Barry Mulligan deputy head of mission from the Embassy of Ireland in China for coming on the busiest Irish weekend ( St Patrick‘s weekend ) and all distinguished guests, art education department of CAFA Huang Xinyi, Song Dan and Yuan Wen Hong and others for excellent support in media preparations, the lovely young students who participated during workshops last weekend, to gallery assistant Yi Shuo Chen , to artist friends, curators from previous projects, and other dear friends new and old, thank you for coming.
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