"Daniel Nie lives in Washington, DC. He is one of the leading Chinese-American artists in the U.S.
His work is well received by private collectors and business corporations all over the world." Nie holds a B.A. degree in Art from Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and a Master of Fine Arts (M.F.A., the highest degree in Fine Arts) from American University in Washington, DC. Nie was an Art Professor at St. Andrews College in North Carolina from 1987 to 1992. After 1992, Nie taught in many different colleges and gave lectures at many college arts conferences including the College Arts Conference in Memphis TN in 1991.
In 2007, The Washington Elan Art Journal published "Artist Breaks Through A New Visual Art Territory" and mentioned Nie as an artist who invented a new form of art in the history.
If we want to categorize Daniel Nie’s paintings, it would be with one word: “Cool" as he calls the art "Coolligraphy."
“It is a product generated from the artist’s inspiration of the phenomena in the current world that he has associated with.” This is how Nie defines his
artwork which he calls “Coolligraphy.” Nie challenges all the conventional visual art forms in the history of art. He uses the letters from a word or words to create a painting, which reveals a possible visual mutation that is beyond our routine imagination. In his painting titled “Birthday Night,” i below C among the E is a “U-turn” from our conventional wisdom.
When we deal with letters like i e c we do not automatically
think of the i below C among the E as a picture of a candle light under the moon with music, but rather we remember the rule of i before e except after c. Nie is asking us to think outside of the box.
Daniel Nie was born in Shanghai, China, and he came to the United States on a full art scholarship in 1981. The dramatic changes in his personal life from East to West, from an era of typewriters and rotary phones to the age of computers and cell phones has made this artist think and question more. Like many people, the artist often wonders: how can we bring jobs back to the US? What strategies should be taken for the Iraq war? Do we really have solutions for our health care system? etc. Nie is not an expert in the field for all these questions but as an artist, he knows that in order to understand these current affairs, he needs to see the world in a new way. His art invites people to explore a totally new “visual territory.” "It is essential for us to see the world not just from a different perspective or dimension but to comprehend the reality in the new territory," he said.
Nie paints with acrylics and oils on canvas with bright colors and
unanticipated compositions. The word or words that he chooses for his
compositions are often touched with sensitive issues, such as “love-hate,” “democratic-dictatorship,” or “timoney” which stands for “time vs. money.” In a piece called “East is Red,” the artist painted a heavy red on the upper right corner of the painting to hint at an old propaganda song, “East is red.” Then the artist painted in black with bold but rather fading Chinese characters “Communist China” as a background to contrast the superimposed English words of
“Communist China” in their paradoxical combination that shapes audaciously a golden "M," the McDonalds' arch, and two “i’s” with one big “s,” the dollar sign. This playful approach to the subject is to demonstrate that once the same words "Communist China" have been rearranged visually, our perception toward the words is also
changed. Anyone who has been in Shanghai, China recently would
understand that what the artist illustrated in this painting is what is happening in the Chinese political system today.
The key contribution of Daniel Nie’s work is calling to the audience to see things from a different visual territory, not just a different perspective. His work introduces a new way of seeing and a new way of thinking. Isn’t this approach what we all need for seeing the change in the affairs in this modern world?
For more information about Daniel Nie’s other art works, lectures and
workshops please visit www.DanielNie.com.
...
