Su Xinping is a contemporary visual artist who lives in Beijing.

Born in Jining City of Inner Mongolia, Su Xinping drew in primary school and was identified as a talented student. He was accepted into the Tianjin Academy of Fine Arts in 1979; then he continued to paint while in the army for two years, ultimately choosing art as his life’s work. Su Xinping established himself as a printmaker, an art form that allows people to place work in their homes; it is economically important to him.

Though challenged by the time and energy required to teach, Su Xinping teaches at the Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA) in Beijing. Generated by Su Xinping’s passion for the grassland of Mongolia, his affection and reverence for the earth and sky, he encourages his students to pay attention to the environment and to put it in artwork.

According to Su Xinping, “Art is to wake [us] up”; hence, scale is important to his work. An artist must learn about work and self—what to emphasize. The highly politically charged paintings are about raising questions, not about attacking government. Guided by passion and social responsibility as an artist, Su Xinping’s artwork serves both social and artistic functions. The work is about China, a comment on contemporary China but also about people of the world.

Influenced by global traditions, Chinese landscape paintings, Chinese ink paintings, and the idealistic Mongolian life of singing and dancing reflected in folk paintings of the backcountry regions, Su Xinping’s paintings are a collaboration and combination of East and West. According to Su Xinping, “Every artist responds in own way to changing society.”