Painting is a way to make the unseen visible — to trace the rhythm of breath, the movement of air, the quiet between gestures. My work is shaped by Taoist concepts of balance and emergence, and by the energy of qi, which moves not only through nature, but through every brushstroke. I’m not interested in narrating images, but in evoking experiences — meditative, immersive, and open-ended. In this way, the painting becomes less a window onto the world and more a landscape of the soul.
Gao Xintong
Gao Xintong (born 1998, Liaoning, China) is an emerging voice in contemporary painting, known for his synthesis of Italian Futurism and traditional Eastern aesthetics. Drawing deeply from Taoist philosophy and its central tenet of qi—the vital, immaterial force animating all of nature—Gao’s work engages the viewer in a dialogue between energy and stillness, form and dissolution, presence and absence.
Educated at the Academy of Fine Arts of Carrara in Italy, where he received both his BFA and MFA, Gao bridges classical Chinese techniques and the visual innovations of early 20th-century European avant-garde. His gestural abstraction is marked by luminous color palettes, rhythmic brushwork, and intentional voids — a compositional balance that echoes both Futurist dynamism and the atmospheric restraint of Shan Shui (山水) landscape painting.
Working between the material and the metaphysical, Gao’s canvases function as “spiritual landscapes” — spaces where the viewer is invited to contemplate, slow down, and reconnect with a deeper rhythm of existence. This is particularly evident in his series Cyberbamboo, where an abstracted bamboo forest becomes immersive and synesthetic, and in his Untitled portrait series, where the human presence dissolves into energetic essence.
Gao has presented solo exhibitions at HOFA Gallery in London and participated in prominent group exhibitions and fairs at venues including AAIE Center for Contemporary Art, Paola Raffo Arte Contemporanea, Museo Archeologico Versiliese, Beijing Contemporary, and others across Europe, the United States, and China.
Positioned at the intersection of cultural tradition and contemporary innovation, Gao’s practice resonates with collectors and curators alike, offering a profound exploration of painting as both a meditative and materially expressive act.