Gao Xingjian 高行建

Born in Ganzhou, Jiangxi Province in 1940, Gao Xingjian is an ink painter, writer, translator, dramatist and critic. In 1986, when his play The Other Shore was banned, Gao Xinjian decided to follow the path of the traditional Chinese literati by retreating to nature. A year later he moved to Paris as a political refugee.

Gao Xingjian's extended immersion in nature enhanced his landscape painting, an art form that provides him an escape beyond the physical. He believes that art is not to be used for political activism but instead as an expression of the soul, and his semiabstract works convey his own yearning for spiritual contentment. In 2000, Gao Xingjian won the Nobel Prize for Literature, bringing him international renown.