by Linda Macqueen

In the winter of 1967, 17-year-old He Qi (‘huh chee’), the academically gifted son of a maths professor from Nanjing’s Normal University, was standing on the back of a truck, hemmed in by picks. He’d managed to hitch a ride from the remote countryside of the Jiangsu province where, under the Communist regime’s policy to ‘re-educate’ intellectuals, he’d been working in the fields for nearly two years.

Of all he endured during the Cultural Revolution, it was that bleak, cold truck-ride back to his home city that he remembers clearly as one of the lowest points of his life.

‘It was terrible’, he says. ‘My life had lost all its meaning. I could not see what my future would be.’

Yet deep in He Qi’s heart flickered the tiniest flame of hope. He had seen it in a piece of art.

That flicker of hope carried him, a shivering statue in the grey-blue uniform of communist China, to Nanjing on the back of a pick-laden truck. He was on a quest to find out more about that piece of art.

During the long months that he’d been yoked with fellow city exiles and rural peasants, hauling ploughs like animals, He Qi had been thinking about a way to escape the torment.

He figured that if he could learn to paint portraits of Chairman Mao, he might find a way out of the fields. There was a huge demand for paintings of Mao, not only for public buildings but also for every home. He seized his opportunity when an art competition was advertised in the farming community to which he’d been assigned. The winner would get to paint a portrait of Mao. But He Qi didn’t know how to paint. He turned for help to a friend of his father’s, the former dean of Nanjing’s Normal University’s fine art department, who taught him the basics of sketching and painting. The talented teenager won the competition and was relieved from field work in order to paint portraits of Mao. Success!

One day, while he was skimming through some of his teacher’s art magazines, He Qi saw a picture of one of Raphael’s paintings of the Madonna and child.

It was the turning point of his life.

‘I was extremely moved by the painting. I felt a warmth in my heart’, he says. ‘At the time of the Cultural Revolution, everywhere there was struggle, hatred and criticism. When I saw this picture of the woman and baby, I was deeply moved and touched. I felt a great sense of peace.’

He Qi started making sketches of Raphael’s painting. By day he painted Chairman Mao; by night he painted this mysterious woman and baby who made him feel so peaceful in the midst of his country’s struggle and pain, and his own.

One day a fellow art student, an underground Christian, saw him sketching the Madonna and child. He explained to He Qi who they were: Mary and Jesus, the Son of God.

Months later, at Chinese New Year, this mystery was still flickering in He Qi’s heart as he climbed aboard that pick-laden truck bound for his home city, Nanjing. There he headed for St Peter’s Catholic cathedral. ‘I wanted to see inside a real church’, he says. ‘I wanted to see if I could see more Christian paintings.’

But the doors were locked, the windows barred. ‘I tried to peer in through the windows’, He Qi says. ‘But inside the building were no beautiful paintings of Mary and Jesus, as I had hoped ... only machinery. They had turned the cathedral into a factory.’

He went to the theological seminary so that he could read some books about Christianity. But the seminary was now the city’s headquarters for the Red Guards. In front of the seminary, a pile of cold black embers were all that remained of the books from the seminary’s library. They had been burnt in a huge bonfire.

His hope of discovering the source of peace shattered, He Qi dejectedly returned to work in northern Jiangsu. For seven years he continued to paint Mao portraits during the day, while painting all sorts of art at night, from Renaissance masters to Chinese folk art. His talent was noticed by Mao’s men, and he was granted leave to study art at the university in Nanjing. By this time, 1974, the Mao regime was allowing some leniencies for gifted types like He Qi.

But it was with mixed feelings that he grasped this opportunity. His teacher and mentor — who had been dean of the Fine Arts Department prior to the Revolution — had taken his own life a year earlier.

Art became He Qi’s passion and his life. He graduated from Nanjing Normal University’s Fine Arts Department in 1979, and then spent three years copying frescoes and wall art at Buddhist temples in Tibet. He took a deep interest in all sorts of religious art, including Christian art, which he continued to paint prolifically. In 1983 he returned to Nanjing, where he had been offered the post of art professor at the re-opened theological seminary.

‘Why would a seminary employ an art professor?’ I ask him. ‘And why would a Christian education institution employ a non-Christian to teach its students?’

‘Art and symbolism are an important part of Chinese culture’, he says. ‘The seminary wanted to teach church workers how to decorate churches with Christian symbols. As for me not being a Christian, they had very few options; there was hardly anybody producing Christian art in China at that time.’

In order to teach Christian art, He Qi had to learn about Christianity. He consumed theological books one after the other, and somewhere along the way — he can’t define a specific moment or experience — he crossed over from being merely a painter of Christian art to being a Christian who painted his faith. He Qi now had two loves: Christ and art.

These two loves took him across Europe to study the history of Christian art, especially from the Medieval era, which was the topic for his doctoral thesis. These days his paintings, which have been exhibited across the globe, are bringing him recognition as a significant contributor to art and spirituality in both Asia and the West. In May Australia joined the growing list of countries to honour his achievements, when Australian Catholic University awarded him an honorary doctorate. Living part-time in China and part-time in the United States, He Qi is currently an artist-in-resident at Yale University.

The message of peace — the peace of God in the midst of a painful world — is prominent in He Qi’s paintings. ‘There is so much struggle and darkness in the world’, he says, noting that the drab, grey sketches of Chinese folk art reflect this. ‘I want my painting to show people there is another way of looking at life: that, in Christ, there is peace, even in the most difficult times.

‘And colour, too. My paintings are colourful because God is the creator of beauty and colour. God made us to be colourful people, resurrected to new, bright life, not drab and grey.’

He Qi has set himself some lofty goals. Part of his Yale commission is the Faith Inkubators’ BibleSong series of paintings, which will depict scenes from every book of the Bible. He is also hoping to create a massively illustrated Bible in English, Spanish and Mandarin, through which he hopes to continue his cross-cultural ministry.

‘In China, Christianity is seen as a western religion and therefore is often dismissed as of no relevance to Chinese people’, He Qi explains. ‘By incorporating into my paintings Chinese images and symbols, as well as elements of Chinese folk art and indigenous art, I want to demonstrate that the Christian God is universal, that he is the God for everyone, the God of peace.

‘Everyone needs to hear that message of peace.’

Given that one-sixth of the world’s people live in China, and given the popularity of his art there, history might well record He Qi as one of the greatest Christian missionaries of the modern era.

God has brought that shivering 17-year-old on the back of a truck a very long way indeed.

To view or purchase He Qi’s art, or to learn more about his projects in support of Christian mission around the world, see www.heqigallery.com

To hear an interview with ABC Radio’s John Cleary, download the podcast: www.abc.net.au/sundaynights/stories/s3236008.htm

Read another story about He Qi in the SA/NT’s District’s magazine Together: www.sa.lca.org.au

Not just art for art's sake

Art for art’s sake is fine. But Faith Inkubators use it in another way — as a beginning point of the journey into the mind and an introduction to the learning process. Picasso said, ‘Art is the lie that helps you see the truth’.

Like a great song, a great poem, a great dance or a great piece of theatre, great visual art stimulates multiple areas of the brain and creates an array of electrical activity flashing about the mind. When used in education, art draws out comments, thoughts, impressions, emotions and conversation around the theme. The art is not the point; the engagement of the whole mind with others’ minds is the point. Using art gets children and teenagers and their families involved in the story: ‘What do you see?’, ‘Who are you in this painting?’, ‘What do the painting and the Bible verse say to one another?’ This turns the art into a true educatio (draw out) tool. Whether the art is a story, a painting, a poem or a parable, it invites engagement which the teacher can use to build the theme.

Founder and director of Faith Inkubators, American Lutheran pastor Rich Melheim, believes that the visual art of Dr He Qi does this better than any other Christian art in existence: ‘It is iconic. It is vibrant. It is humorous. It has hidden symbols and meaning laced throughout. To me, faith without art is an unfurnished mansion. I want He Qi’s art to lead kids to discuss, engage, learn, remember and create their own art after seeing it.’

He Qi has been partnering with Faith Inkubators since 2003. His art features in all Faith Inkubators themes.

Peter Eckermann
Coordinator, Faith Inkubators Australia

Lutheran mission in China

The Lutheran Church of Australia’s involvement with ministry and mission in China has been and continues to be through the LCA’s overseas partner churches:

• Lutheran Church in Singapore
• Basel Christian Church of Malaysia (BCCM), and
• Sabah Theological Seminary of the BCCM.

Pastors and teachers from these churches regularly visit provinces in China to conduct training programs in theology, church music, Sunday school teachers training — meeting the needs of the growing Chinese congregations. Amazing stories of growth in churches and the faith of their people give us the joy of knowing that we share in God’s mission in the world. He allows us to join with him in his work, even in regions and with people groups we will probably never meet on this side of eternity. This ministry and these partnerships have eternal consequences and show God’s faithfulness in multiplying our small gifts far beyond our expectations.

In 2011 support from the LCA through the Board for Mission for ministry and mission in China is:

• LCS – $3000
• BCCM – $4000
• BCCM STS – $3000.

Would you sell your hair?

When former LCA Mission Director Rev Wayne Zweck visited Hunan Province in China with then Lutheran Church of Singapore Bishop John Tan, he met people with incredible desire to grow in their faith and develop their skills in Christian leadership. Some of the most memorable were the women who grew their hair for sale, in order to fund their attendance at a church music course.