Obsessive Mastery: Behind the Canvas with Chinese Fine Artist Dr. Mi Qiaoming

If one were to define what it means to be an exceptional fine artist, you probably need not look beyond Dr Mi Qiaoming (米巧铭). She appears to embody three qualities essential to excellence in her field: persistence, discipline, and the pursuit of perfection.

Her relentless output and work ethic call to mind the greats: Pablo Picasso, who produced tens of thousands of works; Henri Matisse, who kept creating even when he could no longer stand; and Katsushika Hokusai, who practised obsessively into old age, continually striving towards true artistic mastery.

Dr Mi is just as uncompromising: “I hold myself to very strict standards, and it’s hard work. I’m not the kind of artist who finishes a batch of paintings and then goes off to relax. I never go out to enjoy myself; I don’t take part in leisure activities. I have to guarantee a certain output every year.” During her years of study abroad, she slept only two to three hours a night. Even now, she says, it’s around four hours. “I sleep little, but my workload is enormous. I’m creating every single day.”

From Doodles to Doctorate 

It’s no surprise that she started young. At four, she was already drawing and doodling cartoons, adamant that she would become an artist. She set out on that path at a specialised secondary arts school, followed by seven years of bachelor’s and master’s study in oil painting at the Saint Petersburg Repin Academy of Fine Arts, Russia’s oldest art institution. Then came a notoriously difficult, theory-driven doctorate and postdoctoral programme in art studies, bringing her total to some 17 years immersed in study in Russia.

Since her first solo exhibition at 19, Dr Mi estimates that she has held nearly 50 solo exhibitions and taken part in more than 100 group exhibitions. She reckons she has completed close to 300 paintings, never fewer than 20 a year. Among working mainland Chinese painters who continue to exhibit and sell at auction, she believes that holding both a doctorate and postdoctoral qualification is extremely rare—“if it exists at all.”

Riding High at Auction 

The art market has definitely taken notice. Dr Mi has sent work to auction every year since she was 24. Her listed results from 2018 to 2023 show at least one work selling above RMB2 million every year, and the majority sold for more than RMB1 million. Topping it is Dream with the Buddha, a Buddhist-themed oil reported to have sold at Beijing Hanhai’s 2019 spring sale for RMB12.282 million. Dr Mi reportedly pledged part of the proceeds to preserve and restore ancient Buddha statues.

Horses, however, have been a constant muse. Even before this Year of the Horse trotted in, she had spent over 14 years painting dozens of highly realistic horses, skillfully capturing each one’s distinct personality. She is drawn to them as animals who are “very close to humans” and to the auspicious meaning of ma dao cheng gong (马到成功), “success upon the horse’s arrival,” a suitable symbol for a career galloping ahead at home and, perhaps soon, abroad. 

She was recently in Kuala Lumpur for Echoes of Time, her first solo exhibition here at Qing Gallery, located within Qing Arts Club—a private community aimed at thinkers, tastemakers, and art enthusiasts. In the conversation that follows, she delves deeper into her artistic approach, her challenges, and her definition of success. 

What does your creative process look like, from inspiration to finished painting?

I always make a preliminary sketch first. Everything has to be thought through, worked out in a small draft, and only then enlarged into the final piece. I’m not the type of painter who picks up a brush the moment inspiration strikes; every one of my paintings starts as a small draft. For realist subjects, like horses, I’ll take a lot of photographs—sometimes dozens—because the moment you raise a camera, the horse gets startled, and its eyes and ears change. 

So, I’ll work from many photos to create a single piece, even for realist works. It’s the same for contemporary pieces; I sketch a lot of small drafts first. Some ideas do form in my head, but I still work through many small drafts before settling on a final version, which I then enlarge to create the finished piece.

How long does a painting take you?

At the quickest, a piece takes me about a week, and the largest I’ve done took three months. The graffiti-style robot works take about a week each, and smaller, minimalist pieces go faster. The realist works in this exhibition took longer because they’re more detailed, though the simpler pieces in the same series take about a week.

You move between very different themes and styles. How do you hold them all at once?

I haven’t kept an exact count, but each theme has roughly a few dozen pieces. I painted Buddha imagery until before the pandemic and haven’t gone back to it since. The robot theme I began exploring around 2018–19 as part of my contemporary work, and from 2020, I began painting it heavily. This year, I’ve mainly painted horses. But I don’t lock into a single theme for a whole year. The four themes come in phases, so this year leans toward horses without me ever touching the others. It really comes down to personal preference and perseverance. I genuinely like all four, so I balance them every year. Realist work is slow, and you can’t produce many pieces in a year, so I create contemporary work alongside it.

You are deeply invested in Chinese culture, yet you chose oil, a Western medium, over Chinese ink. Why?

I’ve loved oil painting since I was little. Ink painting is a traditional Chinese art form, but it lives on paper, and paper yellows over time. Oil can be more lifelike, and because it uses natural mineral pigments, it can last for centuries without changing colour much. It’s also a matter of personal preference. I feel oil is a more international artistic language, while ink painting belongs more to China.

Of everything you paint, what is the most challenging?

Contemporary art is a big challenge for me, because I trained in the traditional academic, realist school. Realism tests your foundation. It demands fine detail and very strong fundamentals. Abstract work tests your imagination. So, the two are equally difficult, just in different ways. The challenge isn’t technique but how you conceive a subject, because that changes what comes out. For me, setting aside traditional realism to create expressive, abstract work is the real challenge.

Your “Evolution” series replaces cells and genes with candy. Where did that come from?

There are around 20 pieces in the series. At the time, my father was in the late stage of cancer, and I was deeply upset. As humanity advances technologically, I wanted us to be able to withstand more disease. During the COVID outbreak, I also felt a real sense of despair. I replaced many of the cell- and gene-representing elements with candy, hoping that even amid pain, life could carry something sweet. I hope humanity can evolve to be stronger and better able to resist illness, and that many diseases will no longer be incurable. It’s a theme of our era, really. Making it was a tense and sad period for me.

What is your definition of success, and your philosophy of life?

Art is something you pursue your whole life. It never really ends. My goal is simply for more people to come to like my work. For me, art isn’t only about exhibitions and artistic exchange in different countries. It’s also a form of cultural exchange for China. I hope my paintings keep pursuing beauty, and that more people can feel that pursuit through them. But there’s no real endpoint to that. My dream is that more people will come to know and like my work in the future.

When someone looks at your paintings, what do you want them to understand or feel?

Beauty, to me, is almost a kind of belief. I want to pass on more beautiful things, and I hope everything my paintings bring to people is beautiful. I weave the Dunhuang murals (敦煌壁画), classical Song-dynasty paintings (宋画), Shanxi murals (山西壁画), Xinjiang murals (新疆壁画), and imagery from cultural relics lost overseas into my work. I hope this helps more people understand Chinese culture and brings them more beauty.