Artist Bio
Jinghua Liu 刘菁华
Jinghua Liu was born in Guilin, China, a famous city for the beautiful landscapes that surrounds it. At fourteen she moved to Beijing. Her grandparents were born into a family of scholars. When her grandfather died, he left the " Four Treasures of the Study" that are comprised of inkstone, Chinese brush and inkpad for our family. She used them to paint landscapes of Guilin. Her parents found she has a love of painting and they brought her, at age seven, to the Guilin city art center to study painting. She has continued her painting career ever since. Jinghua had the bachelor degree from China Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing, at that time, She researches the use of painting to express Chinese culture and humanity, and she has painted a lot of subject from traditional Chinese myth and tale. She also has taught drawing and painting to children specifically orphans or others who have lost one or both parents. Jinghua thinks art can help people forget the pain, and it also creates an emotional release. She considers it can be a psychological treatment.
In 2014, Jinghua was beginning the MFA program of Academy of Art University, San Francisco. She is not confined to express the Chinese culture and art after she moved to USA. At the same time, Jinghua considers the beauty of the tiny from child’s eye. People are too busy, they don’t have time to find beauty from simple and small, so Jinghua believes we can study a lot from early childhood, and a baby’s eye view is quite different.
刘菁华出生于中国，山水甲天下的桂林市。十四岁那年她搬到了北京。她的爷爷奶奶都是书香门第。在她的爷爷去世的时候给家里留下了笔墨纸砚（文房四宝)。她便用它们画了桂林山水的水墨画，她的父母发现她有绘画方面天分，于是在她七岁那年带她到桂林市少年宫学习绘画。从那以后，她一直在继续她的绘画生涯。2006年刘菁华获得了中央美术学院的学士学位，当时她的研究是用绘画表达中国文化和人文，她从中国传统神话故事中汲取了很多主题。她还乐于帮助儿童并且教他们画画，特别是那些失去父母的孤儿。刘菁华认为艺术可以帮助人们忘记痛苦，也可以创造一种情感释放。她认为绘画可以是一种心理治疗。
2014年，刘菁华开始旧金山艺术学院的MFA学位。她到美国后没有停止表达中国文化和艺术。同时，菁华认为可以从孩子的眼中发现很多细小的美丽。人们太忙了，没有时间去感知简单和微妙的美，
我们可以从孩童身上学到很多东西，而且孩子的视点是完全不同的。