Chang
Jianqing

Chang Jianqing is a trained medical doctor who has been engaged in the pharmaceutical industry since 1992, focusing on drug research and development to this day. With over 30 years of passion for contemporary art, she began creating artworks in her spare time starting in 2020.

Throughout her professional career, including 12 years, she worked with the Chinese subsidiary of a German pharmaceutical company that specialized in producing contrast media. Perhaps influenced by her background, she has developed a keen awareness of contrasts present in the real world.

From an early age, inspired by her family, she developed an appreciation for Chinese seals. She was particularly drawn to the contrasts found within their materials, shapes, sizes, fonts, and engravings—especially the interplay between yin and yang carvings. Additionally, she admired how blank spaces in Chinese landscape paintings serve as a contrasting backdrop to highlight the landscapes themselves. Since 2020, with more time available at home, she began contemplating ways to express and reflect upon contrasts and dynamics through her art.

 Will Gompertz's book "Think like an artist" has greatly inspired and encouraged her, especially a passage in it: "…Finding a way to express your personal response to the world around you with a distinct technique and style is not something that generally comes quickly and easily. But once discovered, it provides a platform upon which an entire oeuvre can be built.” 

In 2022, while viewing several night photography images of Seda in Sichuan province featuring glowing windows illuminated against the night sky, she felt inspired to experiment with square seals as a medium. This exploration allowed her to discover a unique technique and style through which she could articulate her personal responses to the world around her. Consequently, it provided a foundation upon which an entire body of work can be constructed.