Wang Hua draws. (Photo/Cyol.com)

When Beijing Times Museum offered her 150,000 yuan for one of her paintings, her first reaction was to decline. Back then, Wang Hua was a waitress at the cafeteria of the Central Academy of Fine Art, and lived in a basement of less than 10 square meters. Drawing is the only thing that makes her happy.

But Wang Hua was already 34 years old. She left her hometown at the age of 15. In order to spend more time drawing, she only took three shifts at work as a waitress for 1,000 yuan monthly pay. When her parents visited her in Beijing, she was two months behind with her rent. In order to comfort her parents, Wang sold her drawing to the Beijing Times Museum.

Looking at Wang Hua’s drawings, you probably would never think that her highest education would be elementary school. Her drawings are usually more than 10 meters long. Countless lines combine into mysterious graphic patterns. No starting point, no terminal point.

Wang recalled it was a summer in 2004, a passerby said she looked just like an artist. The compliment encouraged her to start her journey in drawing. No previous experience and no commercial objects, Wang Hua says all she wants to do is draw. When she starts drawing, she is completely immersed in her own world and cannot notice anything happening around her. Wang never needs to draw a sketch at first. She says she has so much to express in the drawings that she never thinks the paper is long enough.

Now Wang Hua is a resident artist at a famous bookstore in Beijing. She can draw as much as she wants. But she is still the idealist artist who refuses all commercial offers. 

One of Wang Hua's drawings.