Meet Nianrui Jiang | Traditional painter/illustrator

We had the good fortune of connecting with Nianrui Jiang and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Nianrui, what principle do you value most?
My most basic value and principle is to be peaceful and happy. As an ordinary person, earning money should be for the abundance and happiness, being with family should be for the happiness and belonging, falling in love with someone should be for romance and joy; and as an artist, creating art should be for the pleasure too. Of course I think that a threshold before pleasure is an excellent and well-developed aesthetic system, and a familiarity with art history and art theory – which can be regarded as ‘principles’, and ‘values ‘ are what nourish the soul. It is worth mentioning that the pleasure of nourishing the soul does not refer to excitement and joy in particular, there are some pains brought about by historical reasons or personal experiences that can make the art of a certain period or a certain person, but this art must be a soft hand that soothes the soul born from the darkness.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
I come from Chengdu, China, with 25 years of experience in traditional painting and calligraphy, and have experience working with auction houses, private collectors and private magazines. Overall my artistic background is in oriental art, which is more serious compared to popular art. However, I am a very non-serious person, very relaxed and free, and even funny, for example, I especially like ugly photos, the more I like people, the more I like to paint ugly portraits of them. All of the above makes me an integrated organism of rigor and fun. On the one hand, I advocate strict theory and technique, and regard art history as a living organism; on the other hand, I am obsessed with triggering the beautiful highlights of daily life in a relaxed and funny way, that is to say, I potentially have the standards of classicism, but I am happy to express daily art with the openness of contemporary art, which I would like to call a modern dance without losing the root of the art-This is the point where I am most excited and believe in myself.

I have not achieved social visibility at the moment, but after I graduate I will make efforts and plans for this in a lucrative capacity, and I would very much like the world to see me and know me. What I have already achieved, apart from winning various awards and getting the first place in China for my other master’s degree, is that I can remain free and happy to create each series of works, and there is no dry period of inspiration, my sensitivity to life makes my ideas explode at any time, and I always have a way to take them on with my old skills or new tools, and produce my own satisfactory works. I think this achievement can be said to be very big, because maybe this kind of mentality is the pursuit of many people in their whole life after they become famous, or it can be said to be very small, because it is very easy for me.

I hope the world can see how I, as an oriental artist, use my own slightly old-school style to express new attitudes and thinkers, and I hope people of all races can join me in teasing the world. My current representative work is my cat Yeyi, a tuxedo cat that was once a stray cat in Beijing, which I adopted six years ago. I have been living with cats since I was a child, and I am very familiar with the physical structure and emotions of cats. In addition, Yeyi is a very intelligent and expressive cat, and he interacts with me very much, so I have created many illustrations and picture books based on him, and also many cute little products such as pop socket, air freshener, sticker, postcard, friends feel very comfortable using them in their lives. So, as a traditional Chinese painter, I prefer the world to see my popular art works and products rather than my fine art works, because it can resonate with all the people on earth who are obsessed with cute things, and at the same time, even when I do this, I never lose my personal style with traditional taste.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
Baltimore is a very special city, for the first time in the United States friends, I guess the impression of it from the ‘Crossfire’, and a little understanding, we know that it is an old industrial port city, very charming. I just arrived in Baltimore in the week or two, every day will go to inner harbor alone along the harbor sun walk, see the fish follow the tide has different behavior, see the locals fishing and chat with them to listen to them tell their own stories, watch the sunset. I’ve been to a lot of beaches, but I’ve never experienced the harbor so much, so first I’ll bring my friends to inner harbor to walk around, see the scenery, watch the industrial ocean liners, take a water taxi, do some sketching on the benches, and eat blue crabs. Also, you can visit the National Aquarium, which is worth observing and sketching all kinds of marine life. About drinking, of course, coffee and milk tea. Maryland Institute College of Art near a very inconspicuous milk tea store called willow tea, I think it is the most in line with the Asian taste of milk tea, I will bring my friends to have a cup of afternoon tea here, chatting until sunset, walk to our school MICA, to visit the major main teaching building, in front of the brown center on the lawn have a cup of coffee or Coke, look at the coming and going dressed very personalized students. We can also visit the MICA store and buy some school souvenirs. There are two other cafes in Baltimore that I like, one in Hampden, called Good Neighbor, and one next to Hopkins University, called Bird In Hand. if we go to the former, we can browse around the neighborhood’s many vintage stores and comic book stores, such as the atomic store. If we go to the latter, you can browse around the JHU campus, and there are a lot of good food in the neighborhood. The Baltimore Museum of Art is also next to JHU, so plan to spend a full day at the museum and JHU. Then, Baltimore’s Botanical Gardens and Zoo are also right next to each other, and I would spend a day arranging excursions to both, and I enjoyed sketching animals and plants with friends. In addition, I would schedule a full day drive with my friend to Glen Stone, a private museum between Baltimore and Washington, D.C. In addition to the very well-designed galleries and contemporary artwork, there are large tracts of wilderness, lakes, and it’s very pleasant, and we could play there until sunset, and then go to Rockville on the way back to Baltimore to have a hot pot plus barbecue buffet dinner, perfect.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
The first thing that comes to mind is to thank my mother. She was an artist and painted all the time. But she didn’t plan for me when I was a child that I would need to draw in the future, nor did she take the initiative to teach me to draw, and until I was three or four years old I had already started to draw a lot of pictures on my own by learning to hold a brush like she did (and I still have them, with my parents’ comments from that time), and she still didn’t rush to teach me about it. All she did was to take me around, give me enough time to be in touch with nature, and never interrupt me while I was watching bugs, teasing the cat, playing in the water, or picking up leaves. After I grew up with strong painting techniques and theories, I truly believe that the internal factors that help me create the best works are my sensitive and attentive approach to life, and most importantly, my ability to capture happiness in every ordinary moment.

Secondly I am very lucky I came to study at Maryland Institute College of Art and met Rebecca as my professor. She is one of my favorite teachers in my life. I left China to take a break from traditional painting for a while precisely because I decided to break some of the traditional rules to reach out to popular art, to connect more with people, and to put more focus on purely expressing emotions. Rebecca has allowed me to realize my wish perfectly, and I deeply appreciate the pleasure of pure self-expression.

Website: https://www.januaryillustration.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/januaryy687/

Other: Email: jiangnianrui@gmail.com
Xiaohongshu: JANUARYY
Wechat:449597999

Image Credits
illustrated by January Jiang