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One World One Dream, The Views and Thoughts of Artist Wang Nanfei

On June 26, 2005, the 2008 Olympic Games slogan “One World One Dream” was announced. Within days the slogan began to appear everywhere in the city, and along with all things Olympic, such as the endearing Fuwa mascots, the slogan has become a prideful reminder for Beijingers and Chinese all around the country and overseas of the honour of its hosting this world-class event. 

When Beijing-based artist Wang Nanfei walked from place to place and saw the slogan on billboards and signs plastered around the city, she became introspective and wondered: “What is in my world, and what is my dream?” She reflected on her life and her surroundings and imagined what the streams of people walking past her might be dreaming about.

  Nanfei, as she prefers to be addressed, answers those questions and communicates her discoveries, reflections and her observations in her latest work, a new series, befittingly titled, “One World One Dream.” Her inspiration for the series was initiated by the Games’ slogan, but as it is with all of her art, she is strongly influenced by her conversation with people, life events and experiences and the environment that surrounds her.

“One World One Dream” is the title of each painting, along with the location where she has drawn the images. For example: the Beijing Train Station, Xisi, Tiantan Donglu, Jianwai SOHO, and Beiyuan, Tongxian and one from Nanfei’s art studio. Those who live in Beijing or who are familiar with the city will quickly recognize the sites from the titles. In each one of the colourful oil-on-canvas paintings she has captured scenes of everyday life in Beijing. Vehicles and people, bicycles and pets are all interwoven into, and vying for the spaces on the streets, sidewalks and open spaces. People scurry about busy streets in Xidan and get in and out of taxis near the railway station. A little girl rides on a bike, playing with some neighbourhood dogs.

Nanfei is a trained artist with a fine arts degree from Northeast Normal University, Changchun, Jilin, and an MFA in painting, drawing and sculpture from the University of North Texas in Denton, Texas. She has been painting since she was 5 years old when a family friend bought her an item she had pointed to in a store. What she thought was red wrapping of candy turned out to be watercolour paint. The friend bought the red colour and all other basic colours, along with a paint brush.

Although her father gave her a thrashing for having asked the friend for anything, he allowed her to keep the paints. It was a wise and fortuitous move; by the time she was in middle school, she was a recognized upcoming talent. For her part, she wanted to be a teacher.

But after graduating from college she was assigned to work as an illustrator for Nightlife magazine in Jilin, the city. Her professional career as a painter did not really begin until she moved to Beijing in 1997, living a bohemian life in a shack rented from a farmer that served as living quarters and her studio.

“Sometimes I couldn’t work at night, because the farmer didn’t want me to waste electricity on lights,” she said. In the end, she moved to the Xiertiao Hutong (now demolished) near the Xizhimen Station on the Beijing Subway, but as with all transplants moving to a new place, her move to Beijing was not easy. She had a hard time finding fulfilling work and struggled to make a living while finding the time to paint and to be a professional artist. Her dream at that time was to become famous, and back then, she would often look up into the nice high-rise apartments at night and wonder which one of what she remembered as the “yellow squares” or the incandescent-lit windows would be hers one day. Looking back at her art from the last decade, they reflect her vulnerable thoughts and emotions of being alone in a big city. 

 The “One World One Dream” series seduces viewers with familiar scenery and large canvases. Most of the paintings are 120 cm x 90 cm and 200 cm x 150 cm. The big paintings help viewers appreciate the details that Nanfei has incorporated into her paintings. At first glance, each one of the stand-alone paintings in the series seems commonplace: people, places and things. But upon closer examination, which the large canvas allows one to do, the viewer will see some people out of proportion and some people’s eyes will even be staring back at you, as if they have suddenly become aware that they are being observed.

Nanfei says she intentionally made some figures larger than others, and vice-versa, to draw viewers’ attention to them. Sometimes she even paints herself into her paintings. She’s the exaggerated figure looking back at the taxi in Xisi and the big figure in a blue shirt looking up from Tiantan Street East.

“These are the scenes from my mind and my imagination, and I want to be part of the environment,” she said. 

Talking with Nanfei one will quickly sense how much she values the details of individual lives.

“We live in a big city with lots of people and activities, but people walk by each other not really aware of the others around them. They do things and say things as if they are in the privacy of their own homes. Their minds are somewhere else. I like to observe people; often people don’t even know they are being watched. But when they discover they are being watched, most people have the look of fear, as if they’ve been caught. It’s funny.”

The idea of painting this series was inspired during an intercontinental flight. Trying to overcome her fear of flying, Nanfei looked out the window. As the plane climbed and descended, her perspective of people and herself changed.

“Only when you get closer to the ground can you see the distinctness of people and their problems and emotions,” she said. “But only when you are very high in the sky can you see the big picture. Everyone is thinking about something and driven by something. Everyone has a dream: even the beggar on the street has a dream.” 

Nanfei now lives in a comfortable apartment and has a studio in Songzhuang. Increasingly, she is being recognized as an accomplished professional artist, with numerous shows, exhibits and commissions. Being more settled and accomplished, she sees the changes in her art and in her dreams. Her take in life is just as well-reflected in the series. The dream to be famous has become of being the best artist that she can be and to do the projects that bring her joy.