Biography

Sun Lixin (b. 1955, Dandong, China) is a Chinese oil painter whose practice spans five decades. Working across landscape, plein-air painting, portraiture, and large-scale historical composition, he brings public history into dialogue with private memory and lived experience.

Sun graduated from the People's Liberation Army Academy of Arts and pursued advanced study at the Central Academy of Fine Arts. He served as Director of the Art Creation Studio at the Military Museum of the Chinese People's Revolution. His work has been selected for five consecutive National Exhibitions of Fine Arts, and he received the Bronze Award at the ninth edition (1999). In 2017, the National Art Museum of China, Beijing, held a major solo exhibition of his work, presenting historical paintings and landscapes from different periods of his career.

Alongside his large-scale historical compositions, Sun keeps a daily plein-air practice. He calls these smaller paintings his “visual journals” — records ranging from the snowfields of his native Northeast to the old courtyards on the outskirts of Beijing.