Peace at Heart: Enabling You to Serve Others
30 March 2008
Questions for reflection and discussion.

1. The painting of the Madonna and child had a profound impact on Dr. Qi. What has touched you at an unexpected moment?

2. Dr Qi’s mentor told him to “follow his art” and gave him some old art magazines. Has an encounter with someone shaped your life? If so describe.

3. Out of tragedy comes beautiful things. Can you share an example?

Extra Credit

4. What other ways are there to communicate God’s truth beside the obvious verbal and written communication? In addition to art?

Peace at Heart: Enabling You to Serve Others
Dr. He Qi
30 March 2008

Dr. He Qi (pronounced Huh Chee)

Dr. He Qi was a professor at the Nanjing Union Theological Seminary and a tutor for master candidate students in the Philosophy Department of Nanjing University. He Qi is currently artist-in-residence at Yale, He hopes to help change the "foreign image" of Christianity in China by using artistic language, and at the same time, to supplement Chinese Art the way Buddhist art did in ancient times. Dr. He Qi was the first among Mainland Chinese to earn Ph.D. in the Religious art after Cultural Revolution. He has exhibited in Kyoto, Hong Kong, Geneva, Hamburg, London, San Francisco. Berkeley, NewHaven, Minneapolis, Washington, Princeton, Detroit, Toronto, as well as in mainland China.

His Story
Father was a famous mathematician
16 years old during the cultural revolution in China
All schools closed and He and his family sent to the country side to work on a farm.
A clever boy...”What can I do to avoid manual labor? Maybe I can paint Chairman Mao’s portrait.”
Influenced by Rafael’s painting of the Madonna on the cover of an old art magazine.
Tragedy of his mother who was falsely branded a counter revolutionary.
She was forced to bow down to Chairman Mao. She died as a result.
Painted Chairman Mao by day and the Madonna and Jesus by night.