Ma Xinle: ‘Anything You Think is Beautiful Can Move Other People’

Chinese artist Ma Xinle reveals how he absorbs influences from both East and West — and why he collects paper up to 300 years old.
‘As an artist, you have to take inspiration from nature, from your observations wherever you go,’ says painter Ma Xinle as we catch up with him in his Beijing studio. ‘For me, the studio is a temporary space for me to create my work; it is not a fixed place. Everywhere is my studio.’
Born in Xi’an, China, in 1963, Ma studied traditional Chinese painting at the Xi’an Academy of Fine Arts under the tutelage of modern masters including Cheng Shifa, Liu Wenxi and Huang Zhou. He went on to pursue an MFA in oil painting from Bowling Green State University, in Ohio, and to teach watercolour and Chinese brush painting techniques.
Now an educator, art advisor and cultural representative to organisations including the Beijing Yanhuang Art Museum and the Rockefeller Art Foundation, Ma has been widely exhibited in China, the United States and Canada. In 2016 one of his paintings, The Nine Galloping Horses, was presented to Queen Elizabeth II on her 90th birthday as a state gift from the People’s Republic of China.
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