Acrylic on canvas
Hutong is typical building of old Beijing, beautiful and quite, which is also a reflection of traditional clulture, for hundreds of years. There were more than 3,300 hutongs in old Beijing. Today, it is really hard to find an original hutong. They are vanished, replaced by new buildings. This artwork shows ruins of old hutong. The red sign "北大吉巷" that fell on the ground is its name. The upper part of the picture shows the modern city being built by human beings. On the left of old wall, there is Chinese character '拆', means tear down. On the bottom, there is beautiful gate pier left. In China, pandas are very well protected. While many old buildings have to face the reality of being demolished.
Jia Yuan-Hua is a Chinese artist born in 1980 who lives and works in Beijing, China. Jia’s paintings are mainly based on oil and acrylic on canvases. His contemporary artworks focus on social issues such as the protection of historical buildings, the inheritance of traditional culture, the conflict between tradition and contemporary times, education reform and the sustainable development of the natural ecological environment. There are two main forms of expression in his works. One is a common realistic technique for paintings. The other form is to use an oil painting knife carving the surface of the oil on canvas with using also lines to express the outline of objects, either existed or vanished.
