As an allegory of life, spring equates to youth, the age when ideas flourish, each individual personality “blooms”, and we begin to find a place in society. Education plays a primary role in this process, especially university studies. How is what we learn of help to our future life, both in terms of a career and an understanding of the world? This spring, OCAT Xi’an exhibition programme explores this question.

“Art to Me” looks to the skills that are acquired within an art academy – here, the oil painting department of Xi’an Academy of Fine Arts (XAFA) – by students who studied at XAFA between 1998 and 2003. The works on display reveal how the experience of learning presents innumerable possibilities for each student and, as a result, achieves an endless variety of experiences once the students graduate. Not least, the diverse ways in which the skills acquired have been applied since.

“Sanzu Ding and its Patterns: Hypotheses on the origin of the sign” looks at how learning provides a methodology that can be applied to the kind of professional studies used by, say, an archaeologist or scientist. Specifically, as they are applied here, by Paris-based Yao Qingmei, for her investigation of a recent rare archaeological find discovered right here in Xi’an.

For their invaluable assistance with the Spring Exhibitions, OCAT Xi’an would like to thank curator Yue Yang, artist Qiu Ruixiang; all the participants of “Art to Me”; Director Guo Xianlu and vice-director He Dan of Xi’an Academy of Fine Arts. We also thank Qu Kejie and his staff at Magician Space, Beijing.