Yi Ming is a Contemporary Chinese Cross-Disciplinary Artist and One of the Most Influential Contemporary Chinese Genius Artists in Styling Art. Yi Ming served as the Chief Image Designer for both the 2008 Beijing Olympics and the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, making him the only artist to lead the design of two Olympic Games. He has achieved remarkable accomplishments in various art fields, including painting, calligraphy, design, and film.

Career

Born in Hubei, Yi Ming developed a strong interest in painting and calligraphy from an early age, earning him the title of “Child Prodigy Painter”. He rose to prominence at a young age, creating numerous impressive works with his unique creativity and exquisite technique. His works were featured in major local magazines and were exhibited in Thailand, South Korea, Japan, and Italy.

Yi Ming made his mark in the field of film aesthetics with his outstanding talent in painting and calligraphy. He was invited to serve as the Art Director for the film aesthetics of several mainstream movies, including My War and Jade Goddess of Mercy. As a prominent figure in both the film and fashion industries, he has been invited to serve as a judge and host for various celebrity programs on major television networks. He was a judge for the 2004 Super Girl competition and later the head judge for the Miss Universe final. He also hosted the celebrity interview program Fashion Shopping on CCTV and the talk show Star Moon Show, where he tirelessly promoted and disseminated Chinese aesthetic ideals.

In 2003, Yi Ming published the book Civil Servant Image Handbook, the first book of its kind in China, proposing the concept that image is the first business card.

Yi Ming was appointed as the Chief Image Designer for both the 2008 Beijing Olympics and the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, making him the only artist to design for two Olympic Games. This achievement brought him significant attention from the global art community. He also served as the Chief Stylist for the G20 Summit in Hangzhou and the “Beijing 8 Minutes” segment at the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics. In Particular, his over 20-year collaboration with director Zhang Yimou has resulted in the creation of numerous iconic aesthetic milestones.

In the field of styling art, Yi Ming has similarly demonstrated his unique artistic talent and creative style. He possesses a deep understanding of the essence and principles of styling art. Whether in calligraphy, painting, or styling design, he accurately grasps form and structure, flexibly utilizing lines, colors, and shapes to create a distinctive artistic expression.

Auction Information

Beijing Rongbao 2023 Autumn Arts Auction

Heroic Elegance (Jin Guo Ying Zi)- Sold for 100,000 RMB at a charity auction

Auspicious Clouds (51.5×88 cm) – Sold for 402,500 RMB

Beijing Rongbao 2024 Spring Arts Auction

Spring Charm (68×48 cm) – Sold for 3.22 million RMB

2023 Calligraphy Charity Auction

Heroic Elegance (Jin Guo Ying Zi)- Sold for 100,000 RMB at a charity auction

Artistic Style

In Yi Ming’s works, the essence of Eastern spirit merges with Western abstract expression. He utilizes his innovative high-tech pigments and bold brushstroke techniques to create vibrant, colorful paintings, leading to a revolutionary breakthrough that blends popular creative concepts with traditional ink painting methods. This fusion results in a unique interplay of light and shadow, establishing a distinctive artistic realm. His paintings exude an ethereal and dreamlike quality, while also highlighting a strong sense of the times and a futuristic technological feel, making them highly vivid and unique. These works have garnered acclaim both in China and abroad, with many being privately collected by individuals around the world, including heads of state and business leaders from over a dozen Western countries, such as former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, former US President George W. Bush, former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and former Thai Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha.

Yi Ming’s calligraphy is often referred to as the modern-day “Yi Bingshou” (Prominent Calligrapher during the Qing Dynasty). His work is characterized by a robust, unpretentious style that balances strength and gentleness, bringing a new vitality and depth to the art form. His unique style and brushwork have ushered in a new era in calligraphy and established a distinct realm within the discipline. His calligraphic and painting works are widely collected by prominent Chinese government departments, ministries, celebrities, and renowned institutions at home and abroad. Among these collectors are the former Chinese women’s volleyball coach Lang Ping, famous directors Zhang Yimou and Ann Hui, celebrated actors Li Xuejian, You Benchang, and Joan Chen, as well as international superstar Angelina Jolie and British director Malcolm Clarke.

Artist Yi Ming freely traverses between classical Chinese aesthetics and contemporary aesthetic trends. He carefully observes the evolution of Chinese aesthetics while using bold strokes to vividly capture its essence. His works are full of power and suspense, showcasing profound meaning and extraordinary creativity. Viewers can feel a deep emotional resonance and are drawn into an imaginative and perceptive world of art. His works are not only aesthetically pleasing, but also contain rich cultural connotations and profound meaning that touches the soul.

On his continuous journey of artistic refinement, Yi Ming firmly believes that “art has a universal appeal.” With his exceptional artistic skills, he has sparked a trend in the field of film art design that is leading the fashion world. As the only two-time Olympic image designer, his keen sense of color, line, and spatial structure in painting has led him to be invited as the Aesthetic Art Director for several mainstream film and television productions, including My War, New Moments in Peking, Jade Goddess of Mercy, and Song of Phoenix. Through vivid colors and delicate tactile designs, he successfully captures emotions and atmospheres, using the magic of color to convey the deeper meanings of stories. His works present a stunning visual feast, immersing audiences in a world of fantasy and legend. He is hailed as a leading figure in contemporary film aesthetics, ushering in a new era for this art form.

In addition, Yi Ming also held fashion design shows in multiple countries. He has participated in designing shows for brands such as ARMANI during the Milan and Paris Fashion Weeks. He has collaborated with world-renowned designer Mr. Armani on numerous occasions to create iconic works that set fashion trends. With a passion for fashion design and a relentless pursuit of excellence, he creates unique, artistic pieces that inject new vitality and inspiration into the fashion world. Thanks to his distinctive aesthetic vision and meticulous attention to details, Yi Ming has emerged as a prominent artistic star and a paragon of the intersection of fashion and art.

Yi Ming is an outstanding cross-disciplinary artist who boldly explores various forms of artistic expression, seamlessly integrating different art forms. Through his unique perspective and creative inspiration, he brings endless surprises and emotional resonance to the world while also opening up new possibilities for cross-disciplinary collaboration. By blending art, fashion, and culture, he builds bridges for collaboration across various fields, promoting artistic exchange and cultural interaction, and embodying his respect and inclusiveness towards different cultures, traditions, and aesthetics.

From February to May 2024, the Beijing Olympic Museum hosted the “Beijing Double Olympics Retrospective Art Exhibition”, where Mr. Yi Ming’s works were exhibited alongside those of renowned artists such as Huang Yongyu, Han Meilin, Wu Weishan, Fan Zeng, and Chen Danqing.

Spring Charm (68×48 cm) – Sold for 3.22 million RMB

Public Welfare Activities

Supporting the development of rural schools and nurturing aesthetic education has been a long-standing philanthropic endeavor for Mr. Yi Ming. Children in rural schools have always been a focus of his aid and service efforts. Over the years, Yi Ming has adhered to the principle that art should serve the people and that artistic talent should be applied to social welfare. To date, he has donated goods and funds worth millions of RMB to impoverished areas, left-behind children, and disaster relief efforts.

Using his art to express his heart, Yi Ming often visits nursing homes to comfort the elderly, using the light of art to warm their later years. He is not only a talented artist but also a warm companion and emotional support to senior citizens. By teaching them calligraphy and painting, he imparts not only skills but also love of life and hope, enriching their later years with the vibrancy of art and demonstrating his selfless commitment to public welfare.

Moreover, Yi Ming has actively and voluntarily promoted and lectured on artistic aesthetics for over 20 years. He shares the story of Chinese artistic aesthetics and is dedicated to guiding the public toward correct aesthetic perceptions. His lectures have reached many of China’s most important institutions, including the CPC Central Committee, the State Council, the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Culture, the Ministry of Commerce, the All-China Women’s Federation, the People’s Bank of China, the Central Committee of the Communist Youth League, the National Centre for the Performing Arts, and the China Film Group Corporation. He has also conducted lectures on artistic aesthetics and the dissemination of Chinese culture in countries such as the United States, South Korea, Japan, Italy, and Thailand. Furthermore, he has gone deep into mountainous school campuses, striving to spread love and hope to every corner, ensuring that children in remote areas receive proper care and support. He has conducted thousands of artistic lectures and exhibitions. With the perspective of an artist, he discovers beauty, and with the heart of a philanthropist, he spreads kindness. He believes that art can not only beautify life but also change the world.

Cross-Disciplinary Exploration: Pushing the Boundaries of Art

Artist Yi Ming excels in “crossing boundaries”, moving freely between various artistic domains with his distinctive cross-disciplinary skills, showcasing a style vastly different from traditional “specialists”. He skillfully and harmoniously expresses and disseminates the profoundness of Chinese aesthetics. In fact, it is this multifaceted “generalist” identity that gives Yi Ming a deeper understanding of the connections between different artistic ecosystems, allowing him to transcend the constraints of any single field and unify them from a broader perspective. As a result, his works not only exhibit a lofty sense of artistic conception but also easily transcend national and cultural boundaries, enabling global audiences not only to understand them, but also to be captivated by them.

Yi Ming uniquely integrates cinematic art, light and shadow, painting, and calligraphy into a cohesive whole. Grounded in traditional painting and mediated by creative painting and calligraphy, his works in fine art, film, fashion, and design all reflect his distinctive style. His diverse artistic expressions merge ancient and contemporary wisdom, creating cross-disciplinary visual feasts that connect the emotions and thoughts of people from different cultures. His artistic influence transcends borders and cultural barriers, making him a prominent figure in the contemporary cross-disciplinary art scene.

Fullness and Emptiness: The Ultimate Goal of Art is Beauty and Enlightenment

Yi Ming believes that the beauty of art lies not in the complexity or grandeur of its form, nor in the size of its composition, nor in the accumulation of words and elements, but in the artist’s skillful use of “fullness and emptiness” to tell stories and convey inner spirit and thought. In short, artistic conception can be grand or subtle; grandeur has its own atmosphere and structure, while subtlety has its own refinement and intricacy.

Memorable Quotes

“I am very fond of Chinese landscape paintings; they are filled with content yet also with vast empty spaces. The content is for appreciation, while the voids are for the mind to fill in, to contemplate. Between fullness and emptiness lies a unique style: fullness is emptiness, and emptiness is fullness, with not a stroke too many or a line too few, perfectly complete, beautifully ‘whole.'”

This idea is also prominently displayed in Yi Ming’s works “Auspicious Clouds” and “Enigma” (featured in the Beijing Rongbao 2023 Autumn Arts Auction). The former uses the unique skills of integrating light and shadow to present colors at their most exquisite, reflecting the philosophical thoughts of life through the interplay of fullness and emptiness, reality and illusion. The latter, with its intricate color dynamics, conveys an ethereal, mysterious quality that embodies the essence of fullness as emptiness, and emptiness as fullness—mystical yet filled with hope.

Media Reviews

The 10,000-Hour Rule: Art Stems from Perseverance and Dedication

With just a few strokes, Yi Ming sketches an idyllic paradise where birds sing and flowers bloom, intertwining white mountains and black waters with vibrant blossoms that dazzle the passage of time. While outstanding works of art may seem like effortless strokes of genius, they are, in fact, the result of deep passion and the accumulation of time. Artist Yi Ming is a great believer in the “10,000-Hour Rule” and uses his own experience to demonstrate that “if you don’t push yourself to the point of exhaustion in your creative process, the heavens will not give you the best inspiration and works.”

Sitting quietly in front of a large blank sheet of paper or canvas, he wrestles with the emptiness before him, channeling his mental energy and tiring his hands until suddenly, a revelation of creativity appears before his eyes. He silently remembers it, confidently picks up his brush, and, in a burst of energy, completes the piece in one go—this is the essence of artistic creation.

“Spreading Beauty” as the Main Theme of Art Development

Cracking the code of beauty, creating, displaying, and spreading the grandeur of Chinese aesthetics—through serene landscape paintings, vivid bird-and-flower paintings, soulful character portraits, and majestic Chinese-style oil paintings—Yi Ming bears witness to the power of Chinese aesthetics on a global scale. He showcases the Chinese perspective on nature and humanistic beauty, cultivating fertile ground for the flourishing development of Chinese aesthetics.

Yi Ming is optimistic about the future of Chinese arts development. He notes that, on the one hand, the country is accelerating the construction of a modern cultural industry system, as outlined in the Ministry of Culture and Tourism’s “14th Five-Year Plan for the Development of Cultural Industry”, which emphasizes the need to “accelerate the improvement of the modern cultural industry system and promote the high-quality development of the cultural industry.” This provides a policy direction for the development of art. On the other hand, the aesthetic tastes of Chinese people are constantly improving, and their desire for cultural consumption is growing, which creates a huge market demand for art. “It is foreseeable that China’s cultural industry, including the art market, will flourish in the future!”

Yiming is tireless on his journey of spreading beauty, paying homage to tradition while innovating within modern art. His influence in the Asian art world is significant, as he brings Chinese aesthetics to overseas audiences.

Of course, the spread of beauty is not limited to art alone. For Yi Ming, the paths of “spreading beauty” are everywhere—beauty can reach the same destination through different media. For example, designing is one way of spreading beauty; participating in international fashion shows like Armani’s is spreading beauty; giving free lectures at renowned universities and primary and secondary schools is spreading beauty; and creating paintings and literary works is also spreading beauty.

This “unified” approach to aesthetic dissemination is the inevitable result of Yi Ming’s years of artistic experience, his precise control over aesthetic tension, and his deep insight into the core of aesthetics. What may seem scattered is, in fact, unified and clear.

Yi Ming is a cross-disciplinary artist with a unique creative style and profound artistic depth. His works span multiple fields, allowing audiences to feel the power of art and the allure of aesthetics. His creations broaden the understanding and perception of visual art and inject new vitality into the development of contemporary art. Yi Ming’s works are not only awe-inspiring and thought-provoking but also open a new chapter in the journey of art.