Gu Xiong, a multimedia artist from China, now lives in Canada. He is an expert in painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, photography, video, digital imagery, text, performance art, and installation. He has exhibited nationally and internationally including more than 40 solo exhibitions and three public art commissions. Gu Xiong received his BFA and MFA degrees from the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute in Chongqing, China. He has served on the Canada Council Governor General’s Awards Jury for Visual Arts, Media Art and Architecture; the Canada Council Visual Art Grant Jury; the Seattle Arts Commission Jury; the BC Arts Council Jury; and the Vancouver Foundation Jury. As Professor in the Department of Art History, Visual Art and Theory at the University of British Columbia, Gu Xiong teaches and researches in the disciplines of installation, painting, drawing, photography, and contemporary art theory. His work is represented in the collections of the National Gallery of Canada, the China National Museum of Fine Arts, and the Vancouver Art Gallery, among many other museums and private collections.

School Backpacks, 2009
ten-colour woodcut, ed. 60
image: 18.5” x 26”
paper: 22” x 30”

School Backpacks was hand printed by the artist using traditional techniques and is a continuation of his visual exploration of contemporary cultural debris. The simple, colourful shapes depict a complex tragedy generated by the 2008 earthquake in Sichuan, China. The image is a sober reminder of the sacred trust we place in education and is a clear metaphor for social change, a crumbling of old ways in China.