Beijing Women's Federation

Sun Lülü, a young artist and vice-president of the Beijing Association of Women Artists (BAWA) was interviewed during the 43rd livestream session of the "Experience Chinese Culture with Smart Ladies." The program was produced in Songzhuang, an art town in Beijing's Tongzhou District. Sun drew her artistic inspiration from traditional Chinese culture and reflected ancient Chinese civilization with paintings, which are themed with Mogao Grottoes (in Northwest China's Gansu Province), the Grand Canal, the Yongle Palace (in North China's Shanxi Province), ancient Quanzhou port (in Southeast China's Fujian Province) and other well-known tourist attractions. Her paintings have successfully portrayed the beauty and elegance of Chinese women and captivated the attention of global netizens.

Sun Lülü attends the 43rd livestream session of the "Experience Chinese Culture with Smart Ladies."

Convey Women's Voice via Painting

A group of ancient maidservants are walking side by side with modern women in mural paintings exhibited at Sun's studio. Their co-existence seems to be a meeting beyond time and space. In a work, several maidservants from mural pieces of the tomb of Yongtai Princess in the Tang Dynasty (618-907) are depicted to be modern girls holding various flowers in their hands, presenting a special landscape in which ancient and contemporary culture is fully blended. The painting titled "Elegance Across Time" has juxtaposed Tang Dynasty's women with their modern counterparts to display their different grace and charm. The work titled "Voiceless Creature with Emotion" has found its inspiration from the artistic techniques of overlapping plants and animals in mural paintings discovered in Italy's Pompeii ruins, reflecting modern women's attention to topics about environmental conservation.

During the livestream session, Sun demonstrated her brush-painting skills by outlining and coloring. She deeply impressed overseas viewers when she recreated classical figures from mural paintings in Shanxi's Yongle Palace. Sun said she would like to convey women's voices, connect the soul of people worldwide, delivering love and build a better place as well as equal society through her paintings.

Artistic works done by Sun Lülü

Sun Lülü gives an introduction to her brush-painting skills.

Build a Bridge for People-to-People Connectivity

The camera then shifted its attention to Sun's thematic paintings about urban landscape and people's life in Beijing. The painting titled "Zhengyang Gate East Station of the Peking-Mukden Railway in the Year of 1907" made an artistic recreation of former Zhengyang Gate, railway station and platforms and showcased to global netizens landmark architectures along Beijing's central axis. According to Sun, Chaoyang District is a warm and lovely place where scientists, artists, delivery and security workers, volunteers, foreigners, medical personnel and many other common people live together.

The top is a collection of portraits of people from all social sectors in Chaoyang District. The down shows the picture of former Zhengyang Gate East Railway Station.

Meanwhile, Sun has shown great enthusiasm toward glorious history and splendid culture of countries and regions involved with Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Over the years she has conducted investigation tours over ancient murals from Beijing to those BRI places. The live broadcast program also introduced to global audience a thematic painting titled "Cloud and Rays over Sea near Fujian," which took the ancient Quanzhou port as its background and told the stories of peaceful co-existence and mutual learning between people of different races and culture during their engagement in the maritime business in different Chinese dynasties. The painting was exhibited at Beijing International Art Biennale, collected by the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs and now exhibited at the Chinese Embassy in Dubai.

Sun Lülü talks about her painting titled "Cloud and Rays over Sea near Fujian."

Shoulder Social Responsibilities

Many international viewers said they have got a deep impression with and found happiness, hope and dream from Sun's painting titled "Hope and Smile on Loess Plateau." During recent years, she has undertaken several rounds of volunteer teaching in relevant areas of northern China's Loess Plateau where she taught local children about painting, donated toys to them and instruction facilities and supported aesthetic education as well as rural revitalization under the guidance of women's federations.

Together with other heads of the BAWA, Sun has built the association into a platform for artists to exhibit their paintings and exchange personal views, mobilized them to pay more attention to women, children and hot social issues, and pooled their strength for public welfare activities such as education assistance and disaster relief in a drive to further assume their social responsibility and mission.

"Art reflects an era. Women artists should integrate their artistic pursuits with social growth and lead a fulfilling life," said Sun. For their part, overseas viewers said the livestream program has provided them with a platform to better appreciate Chinese civilization and closely follow China's remarkable development.

An exhibited painting titled "Hope and Smile on Loess Plateau"

Since its establishment by Beijing Women's Federation and Guangming Daily (gmw.cn) in 2016, the livestream program has continuously shared with worldwide audiences about excellent stories of women in Beijing through Guangming Daily's Facebook and TikTok accounts. The latest episode has been watched by 260,000 people at home and abroad, increasing the number of total viewers to 14.53 million.