The 28th Lecture of the Meeting the Intellectuals In the Spring  Hills Lecture Series

In the last Meeting Intellectuals in the Spring Hills Lecture of 2021 held online, we invited the famous illustrator Zhou You to share his experience of art creation and how to heal ourselves through art.

【Event Review】

01 'Losing stars'

He started from his own story, and illustrated his shift of mental states during his growth and creating process, referring to the analogy of how his connection with ‘stars’ shifted through the time, where the ‘stars’ were referring to his real self. Zhou You has lost his ‘stars’ and got bipolar disorder during his growth because of the trauma in the bottom of his heart, but these were not the reason for him to give up. He immersed in art to express and cure himself. He got the ‘stars’ back and finally had ‘stars’ as his companions. He finally stepped into a much wider art universe including poetry, music and other forms of art, and began to shine brightly in this universe.

02 'Searching for stars'

When he was searching for his own ‘stars’, the abilities of two aspects offered him a lot of help. One aspect was sensibility and empathy. He observed things around him and had empathy with them, giving the art works spirit and love. The other aspect was observation and thinking ability. He made his own deep thought on the objects for creation, and followed the specific rules during the process, giving a science logic to art works. The former one helped him accumulate the inspiration, while the latter one set the foundation for his creation. Meanwhile, he shared how he applied these two abilities in the creative activities and what they meant for him.

03 'With the stars'

When trying to express ourselves ‘with the stars’, Zhou You stressed that we should find the balance in our mind and reconcile with ourselves. Pleasure and pain are always intertwined and that is why we have to embrace the contradiction with pleasure, and turn the suffering into warmness. “All the ones who come out of the sorrow unaffectedly become an artist.”

04 'Interaction'

When marching towards a wider universe, he shared with us the importance of interaction. There are inner connections among music, poetry, and painting, and we must see the interaction among separated elements. Creators shall care about the interaction between each notes, each characters, and each colors. Only by understanding what is happening among them can we make a better creation.

Art has taught us to be good at love — to love the ordinary things around us, to love ourselves, and to love others. He said: “I have derived romance, softness, and great power to face misfortune from art.''

【Introduction of the Artist 】

Xian Yu Zhong Xia You, whose real name is Zhou You, was born in Haikou, Hainan Province in 1995 and now lives in Shanghai.

He is a renowned new-generation illustrator in China, who is dedicated to painting for welfare programmes, with millions of followers in ZCOOL, a leading designer platform in China.

He is the founder of REART, and special lecturer of Zhejiang University and Hujiang Online School.

He is also special lecturer of Tencent Classroom, and the special judge of Netease Games Illustration Competition, with more than a million followers in multiple online platforms.

He has published the album, The Milky Way Park: Illustration Collections of Xian Yu Zhong Xia You, and the illustration exhibition with the same name is now having a national tour.