3DTotal: Can you tell us a little about your background and how you developed an interest in digital painting?
Yang:  Hi, my name is Yang Xueguo. I come from Kunming, the Spring City in South West China. I liked painting very much when I was a little boy and now I’m an art teacher in the art university in Yunnan Province. I studied architectural design in university which failed to maintain my interest and I spent more time drawing comics and game characters. After graduating from university, I decided to engage in 3D animation and digital painting. At that time, there was no professional training or way of learning digital art in my city or even in China and the only way was to study it by myself. I prefer Fantasy and Surreal art and usually use the computer to create works but hope to engage in oil painting or other media in the near future.

3DTotal: What is it that attracts you to oil painting and what do you think will be the hardest things to learn after working digitally?
Yang: In fact the CG art in China has never been accepted by mainstream art circles. The majority of

people have no idea what CG art is and even a large number of artists believe that CG art is just an image taken from camera and easily manipulated by computer. They think CG is just for commercial purposes with a very low value. The common idea is that if you want to practice CG art as a purely creative venture then you will die from earning no money. Oil painting has been my dream since I was a little boy and I love this and CG art. Fortunately I’m a teacher in a university and CG is not my only livelihood so I have enough of a reason to do something I love.

3DTotal: There is a definite Surrealist theme running through your imagery but where do you think this stems from and what is it about this art movement that fascinates you?
Yang: I think the first thing good art work should do is attract those who look at it. If the artist only pay attention to describing ordinary life, it may make the audience feel bored. On the other hand, if art work

shows content far from ordinary or real life, it cannot be so easily understood. Surrealism is a good solution as all the ideas come from real life as well as beyond life.

3DTotal: Your work is very meticulous in its detail. Do you sketch out your characters and compositions on paper beforehand or do you develop them digitally?Yang: Usually I start a work digitally once I have finished the preliminary outline. Sometimes I sketch some part of the work on paper. I carry a sketchbook with me which is convenient for sketching anywhere and anytime once I have an idea which I then scan into the computer and continue to work on further. “Concrete 7” for example follows the above-mentioned process.

3DTotal: In view of Surrealism having an intrinsic link to dreams and the unconscious, do you ever practice automatic drawing as a way of generating imagery?
Yang: I have a quantity of ideas deriving from dreams

and daily works. Sometimes I “see something” when I’m driving. For example, the “Concrete7” shows many tubes in man’s head. My friends ask me about what prompted the image and I tell them I was preparing for public examinations, which was a hard time for me. I wanna be a sponge man and absorb everything in books, imagining many tubes inserted in my head and so I created the concept. I think the “automatic drawing” often comes from my mind and I like this free way of being creative.

3DTotal: What would you say are your main influences and how would you describe your painting style?
Yang: I had thought there were no paintings that could deeply touch me before I saw the works of
Zdzislaw Beksinski and H.R. Giger. I had never seen that kind of style before which is so special and adventurous. I began to realize that good work could not only be commercial but can express real feeling and describe our life. I always use abstract elements to express reality which is interesting and also the reason some people cannot understand my works. Actually all my works come from real life; I just rebuild them into different structures to make them more interesting and attractive.