Wei Zhou - Master of Style and Artistic Expression in Chinese Painting
Wei Zhou is a contemporary artist who is known for his ability to paint in many different styles, using a variety of techniques that makes each piece different and a creative representation of his work. While he was trained in realism, classical, academic, neoclassical, and traditional styles, he tends to like more abstract expressionist styles of painting, featuring larger brush strokes and compositions with strong, simple shapes and colors.
The skies in many of his paintings are muted colors, with soft brush strokes creating the shading and texture for clouds. He prefers to paint landscapes and the outdoors, and the representations of what he sees in nature and paints on the canvas, tends to be more impressionistic in style - trees with soft branches, dots of paint representing the leaves, and wispy shrubs along the road. There is often an atmosphere or mood that is expressed with the use of color - brighter colors for sunny days, and muted tones and shades of gray, often combined with heavier brush strokes, for showing the texture of overcast, rainy, and cloudy days.
Wei Zhou was raised in Chongqing, China and began to study art at an early age. He attended Southwest Normal University in China, and graduated from the Oil Painting Department in the Fine Arts Department. He went on to work as an art professor at a private school, and then decided to work as an artist in the Dafen art village where he spent 10 years learning how to create painting reproductions, "original replicas", of paintings. During this time, he refined his artistic skills while learning to imitate other styles, and expanded his learning of Western and European art which included realism, surrealism, abstractism, expressionism, impressionism, and contemporary art.
Today, Wei Zhou is a Professor of Art at the Academy of Fine Arts at Chongqing Southern Translation College in China, and the master of his own art. He is an active member of the artist community and continues to create new art and explore new styles of painting.
Wei Zhou with international art curator Sophia Kidd, Ph.D who visited him at his studio in China
As an artist and art instructor, Wei Zhou has now completed thousands of canvases during his career. Wei Zhou is also the Director of the V-Dimension Art Museum and has an entire museum of his own, the V-Museum in Chongqing, which is filled entirely with his artwork. He is a member of the Chinese Artists Association, Director of the Chongqing Artists Association, an Vice Chairman of the Artists Association of Yubei District, Chongqing.