Earth Pig (Tu Zhu) (2021) Drawing by Hu Hei Bei

Once and again life guided me to East Asia (Japan, Singapore and Hong Kong) and back to Germany. It was in my early twenties when I first visited Japan:

I was overwhelmed by the unreachable, untouchable beauty of traditional Geishas and I was deeply impressed by the variety of emotions which can be expressed by a single stroke of a brush with black ink on a sheet of rice paper.

It took nearly half a lifetime before I had the opportunity to attend the first professional art lessons.

Mildred Hsu Yee Wong (Painterland Studios, Hong Kong) helped me to develop a deep understanding of Chinese culture. She told me how to find the unity of spirit, body, brush, ink and paper and thus to control the flow of the water. All my capability in traditional Chinese painting and calligraphy I owe to Mildred.

After going back to Germany in 2006 I started to learn the basics of Western painting and drawing at Lübeck School of Arts. In all these years I have been dealing with a huge range of different materials, techniques, styles and subjects.

Corresponding to my experience of life I developed a great variety of artworks from minimalistic or puristic Chinese paintings of e.g. a bamboo or a pine tree or a beautyful face to an explosion of colours and dissolving structures which you can find in the Western world.

I am deeply impressed by the postimpressionist masters (e,g, Matisse, Vallotton, Jawlensky, Derain) and by the old Chinese and Japanese masters of ink painting and calligraphy.

My Chinese paintings and calligraphy  are signed and sealed with my Chinese name "Hu Hei Bei".

In my account "Herbert Ruf" on Artmajeur you can find a small collection of my 'Western-style' artworks.

Education:
* 1949

1998 - 2002
Musik- und Kunstschule Lübeck
Watercolour Painting and some Basics in Printing

2003 - 2006
Painterland-Studios Hong Kong
Chinese Calligraphy and Traditional Chinese Painting

2006 until today
Kunstschule der Gemeinnützigen Lübeck
Portraits, Figures, Landscapes and more in Acryl, Pastel, Charcoal and Ink


Exhibitions:
2019 SwissArtExpo Zurich
Painting "Young Chinese Nr. 1" is presented by ArtboxProject

2017 Art Basel Basel
Painting "Couple II" is presented by ArtboxProject

11/2016 - 02/2017
"Impressions of the Far East"
Chinese/Japanese Calligraphy and Ink Painting
MedicalCentre Lübeck

2016 Art Basel Miami
Drawing "Geisha I" is presented by ArtboxProject

01/2016 - 03/2016
"Humans, Sea and Light"
Portraits and Seascape in Acrylic and Pastell
Jacques Weindepot Lübeck

01/2014 - 05/2014
Art on Rice Paper (Chinese Paintings and Calligraphy)
Ärztehaus vor dem Mühlentor Lübeck

11/2012 - 03/2013
Art on Rice Paper (Chinese Paintings and Calligraphy)
Dao-Haus Lübeck

• Nationality: GERMANY
• Date of birth : 1949
• Artistic domains:
• Groups: Contemporary German Artists