Watching Over the Yellow River

Tian Yanlan, female, of the Hui ethnic group, was born in August 1978 in Tongxin County, Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region. She is a representative inheritor of the fifth batch of the National Intangible Cultural Heritage Project of Chinese Paper-cutting: Hui Paper-cutting. She began learning paper-cutting from her mother in early childhood and had mastered the basic techniques by the age of ten. She later studied fine arts at Wuzhong Normal College, the Department of Fine Arts at Ningxia University, and the Advanced Seminar on Folk Paper-cutting at Nanjing University, gradually forming an artistic style rooted in folk tradition, marked by ethnic identity, and open to contemporary expression.

Tian Yanlan’s paper-cutting works often draw on Hui figures, folk customs, and the regional culture of Ningxia. She is skilled at extracting visual forms from Hui cultural elements such as mosques, gaiwan lidded teacups, and tangping ewers. She also frequently incorporates ancient historical and cultural motifs, especially the rock art of Ningxia, into her paper-cutting subjects. Rock art refers to early images carved or painted on rock surfaces by ancient peoples, preserving their observations and expressions of nature, daily life, belief, and vitality. By transforming this ancient visual memory into the language of paper-cutting, Tian gives her works not only the warmth of ethnic life, but also a profound historical depth and a distinctive regional identity.

Her works are known for delicate cutting, fluent lines, and concise yet refined forms. Within the plain vitality of traditional folk paper-cutting, she integrates a modern sense of composition. Her works have been exhibited and awarded many times. She has held solo exhibitions in Wuzhong, Yinchuan, and other places, and has travelled to the United Arab Emirates, Seychelles, Australia, Egypt, Russia, and other countries for cultural exchanges on Hui paper-cutting art. She has successively founded the Hui Paper-cutting Research and Protection Center, the Hui Paper-cutting Art Museum, and a Hui Paper-cutting Cooperative, devoting herself to the exploration, documentation, preservation, and transmission of Ningxia Hui paper-cutting.