The Emergence of a Porcelain Heart: The Youthful Struggle between Paintbrush and Textbook Poyang, a lakeside town with vast misty waters, is the hometown of Liu Zhiying.
In 1993, in a middle school classroom, 16-year-old Liu Zhiying secretly sketched the outline of a porcelain vase on the edge of her math textbook. When the class teacher knocked on her desk, she shook her head and said, "Your mind is not on the right track!" But she clenched her clothes tightly and stubbornly looked northward - the call of Jingdezhen, the porcelain capital for thousands of years, had already penetrated the ink smell of the textbook and ignited an eternal kiln fire in her heart.
Kiln Fire Knocking at the Door: Dual Cultivation from Academy to Workshop In the autumn of 1995, Liu Zhiying stepped into the gate of Jingdezhen College. At that time, the kiln fires in Jingdezhen were never extinguished, and craftsmen were everywhere. The bluestone road was glistening with glaze, and the air was filled with the charcoal aroma of pine wood burning. During the winter vacation of her freshman year, her mother introduced her to an old craftsman who had been making famille rose porcelain for over seventy years. The workshop was filled with unpainted porcelain and glaze, and the air was filled with the pungent smell of porcelain clay. When she first started learning, her hand that held the brush was always shaking, and the touch of paint on the porcelain surface was unfamiliar and stubborn. The master said, "Ceramics are alive, you have to paint with your 'heart'." This sentence became her creed for the next thirty years.
Unlike the traditional apprenticeship model of famille rose artisans, Liu Zhiying insists on completing the entire process of painting, coloring, and firing independently. Others advise her, "Why make things difficult for yourself?" But she shakes her head and says, "If I can't personally touch every step of the process, the work will lack soul." She often waits alone beside the kiln late at night. As the flames flicker, the porcelain body undergoes a transformation in high temperatures, and through repeated failures, she has forged her unique creative philosophy - "Both porcelain and people must go through intense fire before they can become useful."
Song Jianwen: In the "sea of porcelain art" of Jingdezhen, Liu Zhiying stands out with her attitude of "leading the way and innovating". Her famille rose works not only inherit the exquisite ancient techniques but also break away from the stylized conventions of traditional flower and bird paintings. A squirrel has become synonymous with her artistic language.
"The eyes of a squirrel are a window into nature." In Liu Zhiying's depictions of squirrels, the pupils are as lustrous as black jade, and the whiskers are rendered with exquisite detail. They are either curled up among pine branches, gazing intently, or leaping over rocks to chase after fruits, their agile movements making it seem as if they are about to leap off the porcelain surface the next second. To capture this fleeting charm, she observed wild squirrels for months on end, filling her sketchbooks with dynamic sketches. During the creation of "Seeking Fragrance," she cleverly composed the scene with squirrels, magnolia blossoms, and mountain rocks, balancing the glaze colors and creating tension between the lightness of the petals and the robustness of the rocks. At the moment the squirrel turned its head, a collector blurted out, "It's looking at me!"
This skill of "expressing spirit through form" stems from her innovation in famille rose techniques. Traditional famille rose requires a division of labor between two people: the painter outlines the contours, and the colorist renders the layers. However, Liu Zhiying has created an original "one-go" method: using an extremely fine wolf-haired brush tip dipped in glass white, she first lays down a light base, then layers mineral pigments one by one, and finally outlines the details with gold lines. After firing, the painting exhibits a rare three-dimensional effect and translucency. "What others paint is 'scenery', what I paint is 'mood'," she said.
The Soul Tempered by Kiln Fire: The Transformation from Craftsman to Master. For Liu Zhiying, honors and titles are not goals deliberately pursued, but rather natural outcomes and testimonies.
In 2015, her famille rose porcelain panel painting "Lucky Sheep" won the gold medal at the National Arts and Crafts Exhibition. In the painting, three sheep are snuggling in the autumn grass, with their horns exhibiting a soft yet firm line and their wool having a delicate, lifelike texture. The judging experts marveled, "This is not only the pinnacle of skill, but also the flow of emotion." In the same year, she was awarded the title of "Jiangxi Ceramic Art Master," becoming one of the few non-aristocratic recipients of this honor.
However, behind the aura lies an unimaginable persistence. In her early years, she once burned her arm due to operating the kiln alone; in order to break through traditional themes, she was once questioned for "deviating from ancient methods". Facing the criticism, she just smiled indifferently: "True inheritance is to keep ancient skills alive in the present."
Nowadays, her identity has long surpassed that of a mere "craftsman" - as an inheritor of the ancient colored porcelain intangible cultural heritage of Jiangxi Province, she is committed to integrating the technique of famille rose porcelain into modern life. In the lecture halls of Jingdezhen Ceramic University, she often tells her students: "Ceramics are the poetry of clay, and you are the ones who hold the pen."
Porcelain Reflects the World: The Symbiotic Symphony of Art and the Times Liu Zhiying's works are not only a condensation of personal talent, but also reflect the contemporary transformation of Chinese ceramic art.
Her "Squirrel" series has been collected by major museums worldwide, and curators have praised it as a "perfect fusion of the Eastern freehand brushwork spirit and Western visual tension.".
As a member of the Jingdezhen Municipal Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, she promotes industry transformation from an artist's perspective. In her proposal, she calls for the establishment of a "Young Ceramic Artists Incubation Program" and leads the "Intangible Cultural Heritage into the Community" project, bringing the art of famille rose from the lofty heights to the homes of ordinary people. "Ceramics should not just be treasures for collectors. It can be a vessel on the tea table, or a toy in the hands of children," she said.
Kiln Heart's Fiery Words: A Millennium Conversation between Clay and Flame In Jingdezhen at dusk, the kiln fire gradually fades. In Liu Zhiying's studio, "Yitao Xuan," a lone lamp illuminates the unfinished porcelain body. Sketches of squirrels are scattered on the drawing table, and glaze has created a twilight-like gradient on the porcelain vase.
"Every piece of work is a dialogue with oneself." She gently touched the porcelain surface, the paint on her fingertips overlapping with the palm prints accumulated over the years. The young girl who waited anxiously beside the kiln fire thirty years ago might never have imagined that the paintbrush in her hand would become a bridge connecting tradition and the future.
Porcelain clay is silent, yet it beats with a heartbeat under her brush; kiln fire may easily cool, yet it remains eternal because of her perseverance.
"True art is never in the clouds, but between the clay and the flames." - This is Liu Zhiying's answer, and also the secret code of Chinese ceramic art that has been passed down for a thousand years.
Our Collaboration and Commitment: Our collaboration with Teacher Liu Zhiying is grounded in our shared pursuit of the pinnacle of ceramic painting art. She insists on independently completing every piece, from the initial design to the final painting, and produces only 30-40 works annually, with no more than three complete series. We commit to presenting each of Teacher Liu Zhiying's works to you, all rigorously selected by her to ensure they represent her current artistic excellence.
✅ Authenticity guaranteed: Each artwork comes with an autograph from Teacher Liu Zhiying.
✅ Clear provenance: The artwork originates directly from the artist's studio, with a well-established lineage.
✅ Quality Assurance: Adhering to traditional ancient craftsmanship, we use top-grade raw materials from Jingdezhen, ensuring our quality stands the test of time.
To collectors: Collecting a work by Master Liu Zhiying is not just about owning an exquisite porcelain piece; it's about treasuring a rich period of time encapsulated in clay and fire, a legacy of craftsmanship that belongs to this era. Her works are ideal for those who seek classic charm, value craftsmanship, and appreciate cultural heritage.
