Interview with: Wu Ke
November 2026
1. Welcome Wu Ke! First, tell us about your background and why you chose to pursue this career. Do you remember the first artwork that touched you emotionally?
I am a Chinese contemporary artist currently living and working in Finland. I graduated from Sichuan Fine Arts Institute in China, having ranked first in Sichuan Province in the professional art entrance examination that year. During my studies, I also received departmental scholarships on multiple occasions.
I grew up in a family closely connected to art. My father was a painter and professor. He recognised my sensitivity to art and visual things at an early age and continuously nurtured my aesthetic awareness in a natural way through everyday life.
For this reason, becoming an artist was not a sudden career choice I made as an adult. Art had been rooted in my life from an early age, gradually becoming part of how I understood the world, experienced things, and developed my own way of seeing. As these experiences accumulated, I naturally found my way into artistic practice.
When I try to recall the earliest artwork that moved me, I find it difficult to attribute this experience to a single work. Since art had been part of my life from an early age, the visual experiences I encountered during childhood were already rich and diverse. Our home once contained African wood carvings, abstract paintings, and clothing with a strong sense of design. Together, these formed my earliest visual world.
Therefore, my first artistic impressions did not arise suddenly from one particular artwork. They gradually took shape within an artistic environment that had been present throughout my life. From an early age, I began to understand that art could exist in vastly different forms. This open and rich visual experience, rooted in everyday life, later became an important foundation for my understanding of art and the development of my own artistic practice.
2. How have your upbringing and cultural heritage influenced the themes and techniques you explore in your artistic practice today?
My upbringing has had a profound influence on my artistic practice today, particularly in the way I perceive the world and in my deep understanding of art.
From the very beginning of my artistic education, my father encouraged me to engage with the works of great masters whose artistic styles were vastly different. He believed that the quality of art a person encounters in their early years can influence the height and depth of their aesthetic development. This allowed me to experience the richness and diversity of art from the very beginning of my artistic education.
When I began exploring the works of masters such as Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Francis Bacon, and Gustav Klimt, I did not see styles that could simply be imitated. These artists differed greatly, even radically, in their visual languages, use of colour and form, and approaches to constructing images. Yet it was precisely through these vast differences that I sensed a shared strength: each artist's work possessed a powerful inner tension, which was ultimately transformed into a distinctive and powerful artistic expression through their own unique artistic language.
I gradually realised that there is no single definitive answer to what form art should take. What truly matters is whether an artist can establish an inner tension within their own artistic language and allow different elements to form an organic unity through that tension. For me, “change” and “unity” represent a relationship through which art continually generates its own strength.
Therefore, the significance of encountering these masters lies in discovering that artistic languages can be entirely different, yet truly mature artistic languages are all capable of establishing their own tension, order, and coherence, thereby forming a distinctive artistic expression.
These early experiences laid an important foundation for my development as an artist and continue to influence my painting practice today. I do not usually begin with an image or narrative that has already been fully determined. Instead, I prefer to allow images to emerge gradually through the painting process. Through layering, erasing, accumulating, and repeatedly returning to the work, colours, forms, textures, and organic imagery that exists somewhere between abstraction and recognisability continually emerge and develop. Some forms appear, others are disrupted or disappear, while new relationships arise throughout the process. The painting therefore undergoes continuous processes of emergence, transformation, and reorganisation, gradually developing visual relationships and structures of its own.
My artistic practice is built upon a stable and continuous artistic core: a sensitive and profound awareness of beauty and its underlying relationships. At the same time, I continually explore new visual languages and modes of expression, allowing this core to take on new forms at different stages. Through sustained, series-based work, I advance my artistic research across different stages. While maintaining the continuity of my central direction and artistic vision, each series becomes a further exploration of new visual relationships and expressive possibilities.
Therefore, for me, changes in artistic language do not represent a change in direction, but rather different stages in the ongoing development of the same artistic core. I continue to explore the relationships between colour, abstract form, perception, memory, lived experience, and inner imagery, as well as how these elements interact during the painting process and gradually give rise to new visual structures.
For me, what my upbringing has truly left me with is not an artistic style that can be directly replicated, but a way of looking at and understanding art: respecting the possibilities of different artistic languages while seeking the unity inherent within each work. I continue to believe that the relationship between change, tension, and unity, together with the balance between freedom and inner order, forms an important foundation for the continual generation of artistic strength.
3. What is the first step towards becoming an artist?
For me, the first step towards becoming an artist is to develop a strong aesthetic sensibility. An artist first needs to understand what makes art truly powerful and what can create lasting beauty and emotional impact. Only then can they begin to understand where their own artistic learning should start. For me, learning art does not begin with imitating a particular style or mastering a specific technique. It begins with looking, experiencing, discerning and gradually developing one's own aesthetic judgement.
I believe that an artist must also remain open to different forms of beauty while possessing a highly sensitive perception. Genuine aesthetic appreciation does not mean appreciating only art that resembles one's own way of creating. On the contrary, I believe an artist should be able to engage with different artistic languages and experience the distinctive power of each.
For example, my own painting tends towards imagistic and abstract expression, but this does not prevent me from appreciating outstanding figurative art. I can spend a long time looking at figurative paintings by masters such as Rembrandt and Gustav Klimt, sometimes even for an entire day. I appreciate their work not because I wish to become a figurative painter, but because I can feel the intense vitality, formal strength and beauty that painting itself can convey.
I also believe that aesthetic experience can extend far beyond painting. In addition to abstract and figurative painting, I enjoy sculpture, dance, film, music and literature. I am drawn to formal languages that are fully realised across different artistic media. Although these forms of expression differ greatly, when an art form possesses sufficient power and beauty, it can still touch us deeply and evoke a strong emotional response.
Therefore, for me, beauty in art is not defined by any single medium, style or mode of expression. The distinction between abstraction and figuration is not itself a criterion of aesthetic judgement, nor are painting, sculpture, dance, film, music and literature isolated fields. What truly matters is whether a work establishes an artistic experience that is powerful, authentic and alive through its own formal language.
The artists whose work I encountered early in my life, including Picasso, Matisse, Bacon and Klimt, had very different artistic languages. Yet each was able to create powerful visual tension and a distinctive sense of beauty in their own way. Their works all moved me deeply. This gradually led me to understand that there is no single correct form in art. What matters is whether an artist can genuinely perceive the power within different artistic languages and develop their own judgement through broad and sustained experiences of looking, feeling and comparing.
For this reason, I believe that the first step towards becoming an artist is not to rush into asking, “What should I paint?” or “What style should I develop?” Instead, it is to encounter a wide range of high-quality artworks and cultivate an eye that is highly sensitive to beauty while remaining open to its many forms. Only when an artist begins to understand what moves them, what possesses genuine power and why different forms of art are able to establish themselves as art can they gradually find an artistic path that is truly their own.
4. Could you take us through the evolution of an artwork, from the initial spark of inspiration to the finished piece?
For me, a painting begins with open-ended exploration. I prefer to let images gradually emerge through the process of painting. A work may begin with certain colours, lines or textures, or with a visual sensation that has not yet taken a definite form. Its development unfolds through an ongoing interaction between myself and the canvas.
During the painting process, colour, line, texture and form continually interact. Colours are layered, covered and erased, while lines move across the canvas, turn and extend. Each new painting action alters the existing visual relationships and allows the work to develop in a new direction. By observing and responding to these changes, I guide the painting as it continues to evolve.
I am particularly interested in the relationship between “emergence and deviation”. As forms gradually appear, they may change, be covered or become reorganised, opening up new visual directions. At times, forms resembling figures, bodies, faces, animals or fragments of nature emerge in the painting. These forms possess their own visual characteristics while also inviting different associations and interpretations. For me, the emergence of images is always accompanied by discovery and transformation.
A spark of inspiration creates a new opportunity for the work to develop, while aesthetic judgement guides its progression. I consider which forms and visual relationships deserve to be retained and developed further, and which need to be adjusted or discarded according to the needs of the painting as a whole. As the work progresses, my attention expands from individual details to the overall composition, allowing me to examine the relationships between colour, composition, space, rhythm and visual tension.
For me, a higher level of control lies in the ability to grasp the overall structure of the painting. This ability grows out of a long process of developing aesthetic sensibility and learning to translate visual judgement into decisions about the work as a whole. I continually shift my perspective between details and the overall composition, assessing how each change affects the work's overall expression. Through selection, adjustment and knowing when to stop intervening, I guide the painting towards visual relationships that are both harmonious and full of tension. Open-ended exploration offers the work multiple possibilities, while aesthetic sensibility and an overall command of the composition allow these possibilities to coalesce into a painting with inner order and overall strength.
The finished work often reveals a visual character that I could not have anticipated at the beginning. The boundary between abstraction and figuration continually shifts. Familiar-looking forms appear and then deviate, creating new visual associations through the interplay of colour, line and texture. I want each painting to retain a clear and carefully structured visual language while continuing to hold possibilities that have not been fully exhausted. Viewers may recognise familiar forms within the work, or discover new shapes and connections as they continue looking. For me, the completion of a painting lies not only in the visual order and overall strength it ultimately establishes, but also in its capacity to generate new perceptions. Even after leaving the canvas, the images can continue to grow within the viewer's experience and imagination.
5. In your view, what gives a work of art lasting meaning and value?
For me, truly valuable art should first possess a quality that enables it to transcend time. I once came across a sentence that left a deep impression on me: “Beautiful things never disappear.” It made me realise that the value of art does not depend entirely on how much attention it receives in a particular era, but on whether the work itself possesses a power that can continue to move people. Some works may not be fully understood when they first appear, yet their deeper significance may gradually become apparent as time passes.
Therefore, I believe that a truly valuable work of art should stand the test of time. It should not be exhausted by a single viewing. On the contrary, it should continue to offer new feelings and discoveries with each repeated encounter. At first, viewers may experience an immediate intuitive response. When they return to the work, they may notice relationships, details or emotions that they had not previously recognised. After going through different stages of life, viewers may even experience entirely new feelings and insights when encountering the same work again. The work itself has not changed, but the viewer's experience has, allowing the work to reveal new meanings.
In my view, this ability to withstand repeated viewing is closely connected to the artistic tension within a work. Artistic tension can arise from entirely different sources in different artists' work. For example, in Klimt's paintings, lines, patterns, decorative surfaces, and the relationships between figures and backgrounds create an elegant and rich visual tension. Picasso often creates powerful visual tension through the deconstruction and reconstruction of images, together with his distinctive treatment of pictorial composition. Modigliani gives his figures a distinctive tension through his unique treatment of human proportions, contours and forms. Bacon, on the other hand, transforms intense emotions into direct and striking visual power through the distortion and reconstruction of human figures.
The artistic languages and modes of expression of these artists are entirely different, yet each establishes an inner strength in its own distinctive way. This has further strengthened my belief that there is no single way to create artistic tension. It can arise from composition, colour, line, texture, form or emotion, but what ultimately matters is whether these elements establish powerful relationships within the work itself.
For me, the deeper source of this strength lies precisely in the relationship between “change” and “unity”. Differences, contrasts and transformations between different elements continually create new possibilities, while these changes also form organic connections and an overall sense of coherence within the work. When differences and changes ultimately establish an inner unity, the work develops a lasting artistic tension, allowing viewers to move beyond its visual form and enter into a deeper experience of perception and the spirit.
At the same time, I believe that good art should preserve a sense of openness. A work does not need to predetermine every aspect of its meaning or prescribe a single way for viewers to understand it. Instead, it should leave space for viewing, allowing different people to bring their own memories, life experiences, emotions and imagination into the work, thereby forming their own individual experiences of viewing. A work may possess a rich and fully developed visual form while remaining open on the spiritual and perceptual levels, allowing viewers to participate in the generation of meaning.
It is precisely the relationship between this inner strength and openness that enables a work to maintain an ongoing connection with its viewers. It can reveal new details and relationships through repeated viewing, while also giving rise to new feelings and understandings as viewers' own experiences change. The meaning of a work is therefore not completely determined at the moment of its completion, but is continually rediscovered through the intersection of time, experience and the act of viewing.
Therefore, for me, the lasting value of a work of art comes from the artistic tension it establishes within itself, the inner unity formed between its different elements, and the open space it preserves for viewers. A truly powerful work not only moves people visually, but also continues to evoke feelings, reflection and resonance as time passes. Its value exists not only at the moment of its completion, but also in the ongoing relationships it develops with different people, different experiences and different moments in time.
6. Could you define the word “art” from your own perspective?
For me, art is not merely a form of visual expression; it is also an indispensable part of the human spiritual world. It enables us to go beyond the basic needs of survival and to feel, imagine, express, and understand experiences that cannot be explained through language or reason alone. Art allows us to confront our own inner worlds, understand the feelings of others, and thereby establish deeper connections between people and themselves, between people and others, and between people and the world.
I believe that one of the reasons art is so important to humanity is that it carries human emotions. We experience love, loss, loneliness, joy, fear, hope, and many other complex feelings that are often difficult to put into words. Art provides these emotions with a form through which they can be perceived and expressed. Sometimes, a work of art may not change a person's actual circumstances, but it can allow them to recognise their own emotions within it and experience the possibility of being understood. Art can offer a temporary distance from everyday reality, allowing people to spend time with their emotions, reconnect with themselves, and understand what they are going through from a different perspective.
For me, art therefore has a profound capacity for spiritual healing. This does not mean that art can replace professional psychological treatment. Rather, it can offer the human spirit a space that is different from the realities of everyday life. Within this space, people can reorganise their feelings and reconnect with their inner worlds. Art, therefore, does not simply express emotions; it can also help people gain a new understanding of their own experiences.
At the same time, I believe that in an era of rapid development in artificial intelligence, it has become particularly important to reconsider why art belongs to humanity.
Artificial intelligence can process and integrate enormous amounts of information with remarkable speed. It can also generate highly complex, refined, and even astonishing visual results. It can learn existing visual patterns, recombine different forms, and continuously produce new images. However, in my view, the most important value of art does not lie simply in what has been generated, but in who is expressing something, and why that expression can only come from that particular individual.
What gives every human being a unique value is precisely the fact that each of us is an individual who cannot be completely replicated. There are billions of people in the world, yet no two people possess exactly the same life experiences, memories, emotions, bodily sensations, and ways of seeing. Even identical twins have different personalities, experiences, feelings, and inner worlds. This difference, individuality, and irreproducibility represent the single most precious value of human existence.
And artistic value is one of the clearest expressions of this unique individual value.
An artist's work is not simply an arrangement of visual forms. It reflects how a particular individual sees and experiences the world, and how that person's life experiences are transformed into an artistic language. Each of us gradually develops our own personality, memories, ways of perceiving, and inner world through the combined influence of our birth backgrounds, upbringing, cultural experiences, education, and innate characteristics. Because these factors interact differently in every individual, no two people can possess exactly the same life experiences and ways of seeing.
Therefore, even when different artists face the same world, live in the same era, or receive similar artistic education, they will experience things differently and ultimately develop different artistic languages. An artist's uniqueness does not come from deliberately trying to be “different from others”. Rather, it originates in the irreproducibility of each individual human life. This is the most fundamental way in which human artistic expression transcends AI.
From this perspective, difference and uniqueness are not additional qualities of art; they are among the fundamental sources of its value. A work that genuinely belongs to an artist carries traces of how that particular individual has lived, felt, and seen the world. It is precisely this individual experience, which cannot be completely replicated, that gives a work its uniqueness and enables an artist to offer the world an expression that no one else can fully replace.
This is also how I understand the relationship between artificial intelligence and art. AI can serve as a tool for artists to explore new visual possibilities, and it can participate in image generation and artistic creation. However, the visual results that technology can produce cannot replace the most essential quality of art: its individuality. Technology can learn, combine, and generate existing information and forms, whereas human artistic expression remains intrinsically connected to specific and unique human lives.
Therefore, in an age when artificial intelligence can generate images with increasing ease, I place even greater importance on the individuality and irreproducibility of the artist. The art that will truly deserve to be valued in the future may not be defined solely by how visually impressive a work appears, but rather by why this particular work needs to be expressed by this particular individual, and whether it contains a way of seeing, a life experience, and an inner world that only this artist can bring into existence.
For me, this also means that what an artist truly needs to establish is a distinctive way of seeing and a form of artistic expression that belongs uniquely to them. When an artist is able to draw upon their own distinctive perceptions, experiences, and inner world, allowing the work to develop visual relationships that could only emerge through their individual perspective, the work becomes more than a presentation of form. It becomes a testament to a unique human life: a life that has existed, felt, and looked upon the world.
Ultimately, for me, art is about the human being: our emotions, our spirit, our experiences, and the ways in which each unique individual exists in the world. Technology may continue to transform the media, tools, and forms of art, but as long as human beings retain their irreproducible individuality, art will not lose its meaning or value. The essential task of an artist, in my view, is to gradually develop a way of seeing that emerges from this irreplaceable individual experience and to transform that way of seeing into an independent artistic language that continues to evolve.
7. As our brief interview comes to an end, could you add anything about your artistic research? How do you feel about the collaboration with our gallery?
For me, my artistic research is still an ongoing process of development. I will continue to explore the relationships between colour, abstract forms, perception, memory, lived experience, and inner imagery. Through painting and different visual practices, I aim to further develop an artistic language of my own.
My artistic practice has also gone through different stages, including exhibitions, publications, the collection of my works, and engagement with the art market. These experiences include having my works enter collections and being introduced to the art market through auctions. They have made me increasingly aware that artistic creation is not a process that reaches a final point of completion, but rather a long-term practice that requires continuous research and development. In the future, while maintaining the core of my existing practice, I hope to continue exploring new materials, forms, and modes of expression, allowing my artistic practice to develop towards greater depth.
As for my collaboration with your gallery, I see it as a meaningful artistic exchange. Through this interview, I have also been pleased to have the opportunity to further reflect on and articulate my understanding of art, the creative process, and artistic value, and to share these thoughts with your gallery and its readers.
I remain open to future collaborations and look forward to further exchanges through suitable projects. For me, artistic collaboration is not only about presenting works, but also about creating opportunities for communication and mutual understanding between artists, curatorial institutions, and audiences. I believe that meaningful collaboration should be built on an understanding of artistic practice and shared interests in art.