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SEQB20 Artists: Jinyu Li

Flushing

www.jinyuliart.com

My friends joined the movement for raising awareness of the truth about Falun Dafa practitioners who were and still are cruelly persecuted in China. Among the people of the movement, a woman named Kangni, traveled across Europe alone wielding a sign and carrying leaflets of information of the truth to tell people of the situation in China. I depicted the scene on canvas to use painting to show the spirit and ideals of the Falun Dafa practitioners who used peaceful and rational methods to try to stop the persecution and who have persisted for over 20 years to tell the truth to the world. I beleive in the spectacular nature of this movement for human rights in China. The effort displayed by the Rev. Martin Luther King in progressing human rights in America, can be likened to that of these courageous souls who raise awareness for the rights of their wrongfully harmed brethren.

In 2016, I met a family in New York City who had just come from China. The two children were a son and a daughter, and the children’s eyes were full of tears because their parents were unlawfully sentenced to many years of imprisonment in mainland China simply for practicing Falun Dafa. These two lovely children touched my heart which inspired this oil painting. Since the persecution of Falun Gong by the Chinese Communist party many families have been separated and children have been displaced. The background of the painting features Sujiatun Hospital.

Throughout China’s five thousand years of culture, the lotus has always been a symbol of character. Because the lotus flower grows from mud and is not stained by it, it represents the pure and noble behavior of the soul. This represents us in today’s modern society, where we should not only not be affected by the bad environment, but should also strive to always keep our heart kind and pure, and grow ever upward in the tide of society.

The spiritual practice of Falun Dafa employs five sets of exercises of which one component is a meditation. Meditating in ancient China was commonplace. Class played no role, and whether from the aristocrats or common folk, people meditated before studying and meditated before going to bed. Today, people of all nationalities around the world practice Falun Dafa for its tremendous effect in improving both physical and mental health. One day, I woke up in the morning and saw my neighbor meditating. She looked gorgeous meditating in the early morning sun. My neighbor was a western girl practicing the fifth exercise of Falun Dafa. I took her picture to make this oil painting because I hope to spread the occurrence of Falun Dafa with my brush. Falun Dafa embodies the spirit of five thousand years of the grand Chinese civilization. Throughout the twenty years of brutal persecution by the Chinese Communist Party, Falun Dafa practitioners have consistently adhered to and achieved peaceful and rational means “truthfulness, compassion and forbearance” to counter their persecution, a first in human history.

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