Hou Zeng Xin
BORN: 1940
HOMETOWN: BEIJING, CHINA
Hou Zeng Xin, born in 1940, graduated from Beijing Art Institute. He is the Chairman of the Beijing Shijingshan Artists Association and a member of the Beijing Branch of China Artists Association. He has had various exhibitions overseas and even held one in Singapore in 1998, where his paintings were acquired by many foreign collectors.
Hou specialises in oil painting and has created numerous artworks over the years that feature beautiful recreations of seascapes and lakes, as well as female subjects and flowers. His art technique includes creating strokes according to the nature of the sceneries he wishes to capture. With slanting brushwork that were quick and controlled, Hou depicted the flow of the breeze and the shape of the clouds. He used various shades of colours to isolate each stroke and create perspective in his landscape paintings. He also painted horizontal strokes for the calming lakes with hues of blue that blend together naturally. The reflection of the hills, trees, and mountains in the background is highlighted through the glossiness with short strokes of white. This technique is not restricted to his landscape artworks, as seen in his portraits of female subjects and flowers, with short strokes to recreate the texture of clothes and backgrounds, and long and precise strokes used for the stems of the flowers.
However, in one of his more prominent artworks, ‘Mother and Child’, he used a minimal stroke technique with vibrant colours blended together beautifully — from the flushed cheeks of the mother and child, to the background scenery of the hills, trees, and the lake.