Yuehui Liu is a ballpoint pen artist living and working in today’s Berlin. I met her one sunny Saturday when I was living in Germany, at her art stand on Museum Island, where a big art and flea market takes place each weekend. Although there are many unique pieces of art presented there, something in her paintings stood out for me: at first, they might seem simple but a closer look reveals a gifted artist with many stories to tell.
I reached out to her, and on my last weekend in Germany, she gave me a tour of her life, her art, and her world. I left her studio having gained the following inspiring words and a new friend. I wholeheartedly thank her.
During the hour I spent with Yuehui at the art market, many people passed by; some just stared at her pictures, and others bought some of her prints. A large crowd was gathered when she left the stand, stood aside, and started to draw with her ballpoint pens.
Yuehui came to Berlin when she was 21, to study art. She has been living there for 13 years.
But where everything started is the village where she was born, in the southwest of Shandong Province in China. She talks to me about her childhood and describes herself as an active child: always jumping around the lakes of her village, never in peace.
“Just keep drawing” her mom used to tell her, to keep her occupied. Her mother, who used to make clothes for other people and was talented at it, is still a big inspiration for her, personally and artistically. Her childhood in China was beautiful, with the support of her open-minded mother, her father, her siblings, and her grandmother.
I ask her what her first memory of herself creating art is.
“My first drawing memory dates back to when I was six years old and drew a green frog with chubby pink eyes. Where I was born was a rural area with fields and ponds and in the evenings, especially in summer, we would sit in the courtyard with the family and you could always hear the background noise of frogs. I think that was why I decided to draw a frog.”
I also asked her how her growing up affected her work as an artist. “My mother did not understand art, but she supported my desire to draw from the beginning. She told me: choose one thing, focus on it all your life and you will become an expert in that thing. And so I did.
I think my mother just wanted me to be happy, but anyway, that phrase became a motto for me!
China has also influenced my style a lot because I saw the Song dynasty drawings as a child and this style often influences some of my works when I draw. The lines drawn by the ballpoint pen have a large part of the correlation with ink. I have been exploring the relationship between the two, hoping to apply what I have learned from Song painting to my work.”
As she recalls arriving in Berlin for the very first time, she tells me that it was the first big city she ever visited. She may have lived in China but Beijing was only her connecting flight to Berlin. At first, she was intimidated by the size of the city, confused about all the subway (S-Bahns and U-Bahns for those who know) running around.
She spent her first year in Germany learning the language and preparing her portfolio to apply to the Universities of Fine Arts. I wondered why out of all places in the world, Yuehui chose Berlin.
“In my second year of middle school, my sister opened a bookshop in the local town. Thanks to this bookshop, I had the opportunity to read some of the most famous books in the world, such as “Gone with the Wind”, “The Red and the Black”, “Pride and Prejudice”, “Tess of the d’Urbervilles”, “Butterball” and so on. While reading these books I started to dream of being able to see the world and so I ended up in Germany.
I initially came to enroll at university – one reason was also because in Germany the fees for studying are not as high as in the United States, for example. I chose Berlin and Berlin chose me at the same time. The capital of Germany, Berlin is one of the most representative cities of the Western world and at the same time a city of art and artists.
The city offers many learning opportunities as well. With the museum island, the plethora of art galleries, artist residencies, and the “art week” that takes place every year.”
Berlin is also a great place to start traveling from. During her years as an art student, she took part in many excursions to art museums all over Europe as part of her academic program.
“It can take some years for you to say it, but eventually you will: Berlin was the right choice” she states.
Step by step Yuehui started to build a life, took different jobs like in childcare or design to sustain herself financially, and eventually ended up in the art market to sell some of her prints and original works. “There was love, perseverance, and luck involved!” she tells me about how she finally made it on the difficult path of art.
A Day in the Life
Yuehui describes her everyday life, as an artist in today’s Berlin. “The pace of life in Berlin is slow. On Saturdays and weekends, I set up my stall at the art market on Museum Island in Berlin. I like being at the art market, it is very addictive, and it breaks the quiet of my weekday painting. I meet tourists from all over the world and talk to them, thanks to the paintings I make acquaintances, and sometimes some have become friends, like family.”
“In the art market you never feel alone,” she tells me. “Sometimes you may feel connected to people that not even talk to you, by the way, they just look at your paintings.
From Monday to Friday, most of the time and schedule are under my control, I get up around 8 am and go to bed around 11 pm, and I commute between my house and my studio about 3 days a week. Painting is part of my daily routine, and I spend a day or two preparing for the art market. When I don’t feel like painting, I stay at home and read a book. But I also go to lively parts of the city and sit and have a beer or a cup of coffee. The Brandenburg Gate, the banks of the Spree, Mauerpark, the west side of Berlin, Grunewald, Wannsee, and Peacock Island are my favorites. Over the years, I have tried to discover the fascinating aspects of this city little by little.”
About the city’s artistic community, she shares: “There are many different art groups and exhibitions in Berlin. It can be a public event, a meeting of a few people, or a chat between two, we support and encourage each other, because making art is not an easy thing. We often talk about exhibition plans, financial problems, family plans, and other practical matters. However, I don’t really enjoy a social life, I have a few friends with whom I spend time, but in general, I prefer to be with my ballpoint pens.
Artists of many directions, painters, musicians, and performers can live here. Not everyone earns money: but not everyone wants money. Some people, especially young people, just want to work in the arts, to express themselves, to be seen. Berlin can offer that. This attracted me.”
People can get to know Yuehui and her art, every weekend at the museum island art market. I wonder what she may gain from the interactions there: “The art market is a timely feedback for my work, it gives me the motivation to continue painting. It also breaks the dilemma of an artist burying his head in the sand and only concentrating on his work. This leads to a lack of feedback from people and also makes life more difficult.” she says laughing.
“The art market allows me to have weekly contact with people from all over the world, from all walks of life, from so-called celebrities to politicians, from actors to models, from businessmen to office workers, from international students to children and pets. Meetings and chats are good for my work, they allow me to get to know myself, my language, and my culture. Through this window, I enjoy myself and realize that becoming a famous artist is not the most important thing in my life, but I want to be a positive, healthy, and life-loving person. These are the things I have been given and I am satisfied and grateful!”
At the University of Fine Arts, she studied many artists, but there are three that stood out for her. “I love Frida Kahlo and Monet, both artists are my spiritual mentors, Frida’s paintings are a true reflection of her life journey, her love for art, and her depiction of emotions and physical pain. Monet’s nature, fields and light make people linger in her artistic world, and the art is so magical that it can make people enter another kind of time and space tunnel.
Rothko is one of my favorites as well because he has completely influenced the way I work with color”
Her ballpoint pen technique is indeed, a very unique one.
“I chose the ballpoint pen because of its firm and precise line. It is related to my childhood. I have a special memory of my grandmother sitting in front of a large wooden loom and skillfully swinging the wood to interweave the cloth. My mother often used the thread of the sewing machine to make clothes. Dad would cut the hemp in the field, bundle it, put it in water, and after two days, a long hemp rope was obtained. All these were my first impressions of the lines, which were magic to me.
But the death of my father, my grandmother, and my mother, and my depression for ten years, gave me an immense attachment to lines, and lines are like medicines that heal me. The love of my loved ones seems to be mixed in every line. The more lines I draw, the more skilled I become at mixing strength and color. By now, besides my love for my family, I have gained a better understanding of life, and the lines can be long or short, soft or strong, just like us.”
I realize that the connection she made with lines in her painting, is a way of holding on to her loved ones.
“As time goes by, it becomes harder to bring back memories of my mother. But when I draw, I can hear her laugh clearly.” I shared with her one of my thoughts: that when we miss someone that much, we always try to remember the way they laughed.
On womanhood
In Yuehui’s paintings, we often meet a girl or woman and I couldn’t help but wonder what the female form means to her. “Many women appear in my paintings: firstly, being a woman myself, I think the beauty of women is unique; secondly, Germany is the birthplace of feminism. Women have more rights in Europe, America, and Western societies, and it is easier for them to experience the beauty and value of women.
When I was a child, I saw many families that favored sons over daughters, and women did not have the so-called ‘I’. There were a lot of ‘shoulds’ for women instead. Women should get married, take care of their household, and give birth.
Today, society still gives them many constraints, so in my paintings, I hope women are all beautiful and free. Not least, it is always the memory of my mother that drives me to paint female figures.”
I notice in her words a relationship with freedom and I tell her so. “I connect freedom with womanhood. Women should have the same rights as men. Her world and direction are broad, it is her choice, which includes career, marriage, childbirth, and so on.
Everyone wants to be free, but there is no absolute freedom in life, only relative freedom. For me, freedom is being independent, doing what I want, and not doing what I don’t like. Now there is another thing to add: self-discipline, and behind self-discipline there is more freedom.”
Yuehui uses many colors in order to portray women in her work: pastels to represent that they can be calm and soft but also darker ones for their power and bravery. She feels that women can be anything they want to be.
We go back in time when she narrated a beautiful story to me about her painting “Lilies” that I got back in May. She told me then that “people may open up to you like some flowers open up with the sun”. I ask her if she would like to share another story about one painting.
“I would like to share another large work, 150x200cm, the name is “The Tree”. At the beginning of 2020 when I just moved into the new flat, I bought a tree. I did not put it on the balcony but in the bedroom next to the bed. When the weather was sunny, I would open the window and the sunlight would shine on the leaves. The leaves would sway and I would feel like it was one of my friends, chatting with me. So I decided to paint an abstract tree, only the colors of the tree were extracted. I hope the tree’s life force can be eternal in my painting. This year is 2024 and the artwork will go to Texas, USA, and I am very happy about it.”
In the end, Yuehui gives a message to young artists who are reading this interview. “Don’t care about the outcome, be bold and do what you love, enjoy the process, and strive to be the best you can be, and of course, that’s what I say to myself as well!
And also a little something about the city of possibilities that I live in. In Berlin, you can be many things: rich or poor, an artist or any other profession. Above everything, you can be yourself. I have felt this in other cities too, over the years, like Tokyo or New York. But at least here it’s easier to pay rent!”
Interview: Aphrodite Kerameos
