by Pauline Zhizi Huang 5/2005.

　　“The Water Lily” by Dalu, completed in year 2000, still hangs in my Beijing home and the perfect combination of a favourable oriental theme and classic techniques of western oil painting has never lacked admiration.

　　It was a gift from Dalu before he left China for Australia. I felt a bit sad and worried to see him leave China behind and venture into a totally new arena. Would he lose his inspiration and strength if he uprooted him from the land that has nurtured him?

　　Dalu had fame and money in China. He was successful and sought after. “To Dalu, painting is life and life is painting. There is no boundary.” his wife, Xiaoxi, a professional photographer also from Beijing, made a remark on Dalu outlook of life.

　　That is why as he turned into his 50s, he announced that his time of living in China was up. He wanted to break through the familiarity, to push his horizon farther and to apply his realism and classicism to new subject matters. Having bid farewell to his fame in the circle of arts of China, his respectful teaching position as a professor of arts in universities and his spacious apartment sitting on top of a high-rise from where one could stretch one’s view into the Western Hill mountain range in the west of Beijing, he packed and left.

　　In fact, since as early as 1990, he has already had several personal shows at Galleria della Tartaruga in Rome, Italy next to shows to Singapore. He is only one of a few Chinese painters who have been well received in Europe. His 1990 show in Rome was considered by the local critics as “one of this year’s most important exhibitions.”

　　Good oil painters in China are numerous, but Dalu stands out with his solid academic training, his penchant for romanticism, his acute observation on nicety and his strength in expressing his subject matters with accuracy and richness. His works of nudes and portraits are representatives. They catch people’s eyes without efforts. Viewers in Roman, Sydney and Beijing were reported to be marveled by the vividness of his portraits. In the second year of moving into Australia, Dalu entered his work – a portrait of the first Australian ambassador to China, Mr Stephen Fitzgerald, into the 2003 Archibald Prize. It was a stunning work. I was touched by his capacity to reflect one’s outer look and inner world in such subtlety that the portrait looked so real yet again so surreal. At the opening party held in NSW Art Gallery, I recorded one admirer who approached Dalu for his secrecy with the brushes. “How did you do that, the hair, the nose and wrinkles around eye corners? “ I loved it so much that I couldn’t help whispering to him that this was the painting that deserved the prize. Within my expectation, after the selected entries for the Prize finished their tour in Sydney and Melbourne, the portrait of Mr. Fitzgerald - “Lao Fei” won the People’s Choice.

　　In March 2004, his work, “Stage Life – John Clark,” was once again selected by the 2004 Archibald Prize. Once again, John Clark’s streaks of silvery hair and the twinkles in his eyes captured viewers’ hearts. Following that, 2004 The Doug Moran National Portrait Prize in Sydney selected his another work, “Art Student”. Dalu was greatly encouraged and thanked his newly adopted homeland for its generosity and openness in recognizing his talents. He told me that some fellow painters at the Archibald Prize felt that he was very lucky to be selected by the prize at the first time of entering. Actually, it is the thorough training in basic skills, his respect for realism and his perfect appliance of classic techniques sailed him through.

　　Dalu said that he loved Australia. The open land and the sea air provide him with more space to let soar his soul. Coming to Australia is like entering another realm according to the Buddhist thinking. He has finally found tranquility and time to reflect on Buddhism, something he has longed to soak himself in, from which he is drawing new strength for his future work.

　　Dalu was born in 1953 into a family of the learned. His father was the Head of the Department of English Language of the Foreign Language University in Beijing. His grandfather was his childhood teacher. Using a ruler as the cane wielding ruthlessly over young Dalu’s hands, the grandpa made sure that the traditional Chinese ethics, poems, literature as well as calligraphy were drummed into Dalu. Today, Dalu attributes his handsome handwritings with Chinese brush pens to his old man and his sternness. If you notice some fine Chinese calligraphies used cleverly here and there in Dalu’s oil paintings, this special skill really touches up the beauty and oriental flavors in his creations.

　　Like what thousands of Chinese young people did during the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), Dalu tilled the farmland in one of the most destitute areas of China in his teenage years and lived a peasant’s life imbued with hardship and hopelessness. Miraculously, he was not crushed. The countryside lifestyle toughed his young body and enlarged his mind. It also enriched his compassion and imagination. His eagerness to express what he had been through in visual form ignited his desire to learn. Once he had the chance to go back to schools, he studied diligently in the Department of Fine Arts, Beijing Film Institute.

　　Over years of hard work, he had finally committed those unforgettable memories of the yellow earth, sunflowers, country girls with big eyes, young women in field work and resting in traditional Chinese houses with sunny smiles and robust physiques onto canvas. In October 1988, Dalu published his collection “Oil Paintings of Human Body by Zhao Dalu”. (by the Culture and Art Publishing House)

　　Without saying, everyone knows what life was look like during the Cultural Revolution and the generation who has survived that turmoil and madness called themselves “The Scarred Generation.”

　　However, there are always exceptions and Dalu is one of them. His belief in “every cloud has a silver lining,” his little attachment to material life and his passion for life as it is have enabled him to always see the bright side of life and think beyond temporary gains and losses.

　　“He is an optimistic person,” said his wife, “he can always find beautiful things in his life. He went through a hard life, but you don’t see a trace of that in his work. On the contrary, you may breath in a delighted and wholesome air from his paintings.”

　　Yes, there is a kind of spirit kicking in Dalu’s works. Like the water lilies that are rooted in muddy bogs, but give out the most beautiful and purest display of flowers. Dalu’s paintings have evoked a rich flavor of oriental philosophy. As a Chinese critic commented, “Its intense exquisiteness verges on naturalism; nonetheless, his peasant children and women are different from the model sketches of the classroom, revealing a return to original purity and simplicity. His many nude works also have unique characteristics.” However, the emphasis is on the revelation of souls rather than only on the shine of skin colors.

　　Dalu leads a simple life but has the quality of a poet. One can easily perceive through his nudes that “desires are treated poetically with genuine frankness and sincerity.”

　　Not only a poet, but also a fine craftsman, Dalu considered both of the qualities important to an artist. Besides his nudes, many of his other works have received various awards and prizes in China and Italy. Winning the Campidogliod’ Oro, 1993 Golden Award of the International Institute of Culture Unity of Italy, Dalu is admitted to be its academician. Today, you can find the name of Zhao Dalu and introduction of his works in the Biographic Dictionary of the Well-known Contemporary Painters (Vol. III) published by this Institute.

　　In year 2001, he was invited to participate in the first Men for Earth and Cultural Exhibit organized and hosted by Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations in Rome. He was rewarded a silver medal as an outstanding Asian-Pacific artist. Up to now, art collectors from China, Italy, Germany, USA, Japan, UK, Singapore and Australia have collected his works.

　　Last November in a sunny afternoon, I visited Dalu in his Sydney home. Knowing that he has done some Australian landscapes, I asked him to show me some his favorites.

　　He jumped up and dragged me into his small drawing room. Holding up a just finished “Jacaranda,” my eyes went moist. It suddenly reminded me of the Water Lilies that he painted in Beijing. The changing times haven’t changed his artistic values. The vividness of the purple-colored trees that lined up Sydney’s Linfield streets has characteristically oozed out under the subtle strokes. Obviously, you see a burning passion for his new homeland. However, the love affair is only possible with a superb training in techniques that he inherited from his old homeland. Australia has come into his heart. But Dalu has assured me that China is in his blood.