MSU graduate student paints, draws her way to Creative Quarterly award-winner status

“The Past Time” (Submitted/by Jingshuo Yang)

“My Friend Manzi” (Submitted/by Jingshuo Yang)

Contact: Sasha Steinberg

STARKVILLE, Miss.—A design publication considered one of the world’s best is again recognizing talent being developed in Mississippi State’s College of Architecture, Art and Design.

MSU graduate student Jingshuo Yang, a China native residing in Starkville, has received Fine Art Runner-Up Awards from Creative Quarterly: The Journal of Art and Design for two works she produced under the guidance of MSU Professor Emeritus of Art Brent Funderburk. Both submissions can be viewed in Creative Quarterly’s online gallery at https://cqjournal.com/gallery/44.

In her piece “The Past Time,” Yang incorporates ink and Chinese pigment on tough silk to depict a model she met at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing, China, where she earned a Master of Fine Arts in painting and drawing.

“The girl liked reading and told me many of her stories,” Yang said. “The magnolia leaves were colorful at the time, too, so I put them in my painting.”

Yang, who also holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in painting and drawing from the China Academy of Art, said she created her other award-winning portrait “My Friend Manzi” using pencil on sketch paper.

A current member of the Starkville Area Arts Council, Yang has lectured in MSU studio courses and taught private lessons in traditional Chinese painting and drawing. In 2016, her work was featured in an “Insight” solo exhibition at MSU’s Colvard Student Union Art Gallery.

MSU’s College of Architecture, Art and Design is home to the Magnolia State’s largest undergraduate studio art program. For more on the college and its Department of Art, visit www.caad.msstate.edu.

MSU is Mississippi’s leading university, available online at www.msstate.edu.