Today marks the first day of 2026, a meaningful new beginning brimming with hope. Here, I extend my sincerest New Year’s greetings to all the collectors, friends, partners, and fellow travelers who have supported me along this journey. May this exploration, rooted in ink and soaring on the wings of color, continue to resonate with your life experiences.

Looking back on the past year, my heart is filled with emotion and nostalgia. On the path of “Fantasy-Color Freehand,” we have reaped bountiful fruits: over 150 new works were created throughout the year, each an inquiry into the inner cosmos and the spirit of our times. Even more exhilarating is that our artistic footsteps have firmly stepped into a broader world—preparations for my overseas solo tour have smoothly commenced. Collaborations and operational setups for venues in Malaysia and Hong Kong have officially begun, marking a new phase of practical international dialogue for “Fantasy-Color Freehand.”

To welcome this global tour, my team and I have dedicated ourselves to optimizing and building a new English-language WordPress platform. Furthermore, we have solemnly named it: “New Visions in Art | 艺术新视野.”

This is far from a simple renaming; it is a long-gestating elevation of perspective. It stems from an increasingly clear self-awareness: when artistic exploration has delved into the uncharted territory where philosophy and technique merge, any geographical prefix may inadvertently become a limitation to understanding itself. The dialogue we seek concerns the contemporary life of ink, the Eastern translation of color, and, even more, the visual and intellectual energy that surges on the canvas, capable of transcending cultural barriers. Therefore, we have chosen to shed the old name and embrace a more open, more core-oriented title—“New Visions.” This marks both a record of a significant journey node and the active opening of a brand-new perspective.

Through dedicated cultivation over the past year, “Fantasy-Color Freehand” has become increasingly systematic and refined as an independent creative system and aesthetic philosophy. It consistently addresses a core question: How can the spirit of ink painting be reborn in the contemporary era?

My approach is to undertake a thorough “grammatical” translation. I adhere to the expressive core and spatial philosophy of ink wash painting but resolutely introduce intense subjective color and deconstructive light and shadow, establishing the unique technical language of “Three Parts Ink, Five Parts Color, Two Parts Light.” This gives the works an internationally abstract and elusive visual quality, yet the underlying structure, breath, and sense of power within the picture plane undoubtedly originate from the magnificent lineage of China’s millennium-old landscape art tradition.

Thus, my paintings serve as a bridge connecting classical artistic conception with contemporary perception. Today, as the founder of the Mu Ran Gong Fantasy-Color Freehand Research Institute, I continue to promote the development of this system through creation, research, and teaching. I firmly believe that my work is not only an expression of personal inner traces but also carries a mission: to allow the profound aesthetic wisdom originating from the East to contribute an irreplaceable, unique perspective to the magnificent panorama of world contemporary art.

Looking forward to 2026, my artistic path will stride into an even more splendid chapter.

“Fantasy-Color” is the external visual language that resonates with the times; “Freehand” is the internal Eastern soul that connects antiquity with the present. Visually, my works are international and abstract, but their underlying code remains the philosophy and aesthetics born from the millennium-long dialogue between the brush and Xuan paper. I do not depict the forms of mountains and waters; instead, I construct a spiritual realm that is “traversable and inhabitable.” What coalesces within it is my contemporary understanding of “Creation”—encompassing nature, tradition, the flow of time, and, moreover, the full projection of the creator’s state of being at this very moment.

The transformation from “Lu Jinsong” to “Mu Ran Gong” marks a clear path from humble inheritance to courageous innovation. My lifelong work is to enable ink, this most ancient Eastern medium, to participate with utmost confidence in the global dialogue of contemporary art and to offer a unique vision of the future—one that can only grow from the depths of our rich cultural soil.

The New Year has arrived, renewing all things. Thank you for walking with me at the dawn of these “New Visions.” Let us continue, with anticipation, courage, and love, to embark on the next journey of exploration.

Lu Guanyu (Mu Ran Gong)
New Year’s Day, 2026