Lightbox Expo 2023: An Interview With Kai Lun Qu

• Date: 10/28/2023
• Location: Lightbox Expo 2023

Anime Herald: What’s a nice, classically trained artist like you doing in a place like this?

Kai Lun Qu: I always felt like I never really belonged or fit in the fine art industry. I was interested in their techniques and their methodologies and philosophies. I was a huge fan of old masters like Sargent, Zorn, Sorolla, contemporary masters like Richard Schmid, Jeremy Lipking. I felt like I never connected with the subject matter. I consider myself a huge nerd in pop culture. I love video games. I love film. I love comics, Marvel, DC, Star Wars. I never see stuff like that represented with these kinds of techniques.

I’m just trying to do my part of introducing the techniques of the artists I admire and use it on subject matters I have interest in. I hope to introduce some of the newer generations of younger artists to utilizing oil paint as a medium. I feel like it’s something not a lot of people are using anymore. It’s becoming mystified.

Anime Herald: What is your origin story as an artist?

Kai Lun Qu: It’s a long story. I’ll condense it as much as I can. I grew up in California. My father was an art professor, but he wasn’t living with me. My parents separated when I was a kid. He was in China for a majority of my life. I was with my mom in America. I was kind of a bad kid. I didn’t get good grades or have a purpose in life. I cut class to the point where my mom didn’t want to handle me anymore. She called my dad saying “I can’t deal with this anymore.”

My dad said “Why don’t you send him to China? I’ll enroll him into an art academy here. That way it will teach him discipline and some kind of technical foundation so he won’t be homeless in the future.”

They basically Shanghaied me to China. They tricked me into going, saying, “We’re going to visit your grandparents.” But it didn’t turn out that way.

Anime Herald: Wait, did you not get to visit your grandparents?

Kai Lun Qu: I did but…

Anime Herald: Well, then they didn’t lie.

Kai Lun Qu: I guess….

I ended up going to China and studying there for a year and a half. Chinese education is very different from America. Because of the social and government relationships between China and Russia/The Soviet Union, they adopted Russia’s academic approach to classical drawing training. That never stopped, so I was taught those methodologies.

After a year and a half, I came back to America. Because there was no training like that for students my age, I was immediately able to stand out among my peers in regards to drawing abilities.

Anime Herald: Are there any Russian artists that you’re a huge fan of, since that was your style of training?

Kai Lun Qu: Not really. I like Nicolai Fechin’s and Ilya Repin’s work. But the way we were taught in China, it was almost like SAT prep. You had to draw this specific way. It wasn’t about beauty, it was super technical. So I came back to America super jaded thinking that was the only way to draw. When I came back, I discovered John Singer Sargent and Richard Schmid.

After seeing their work I realized you can pursue beauty within painting while still upholding the excellence of drawing craftsmanship. That’s what inspired me to start painting.

Anime Herald: Were you less of a bad kid at that point?

Kai Lun Qu: I was. They really kicked my ass in China. But I’m really happy they did that. I came back a lot more appreciative and grateful for the life I have here. In China it’s no joke. We lived in dorms, six people to a room. We washed our clothes in a bucket, dried them out the window. Six days a week we’d get up at 4 AM and study until 10 PM. That was every week. It humbled me and made me appreciate life here a lot more. When I came back all I wanted to do was study hard. But, even then, I didn’t think I was going to be doing oil painting. I thought I was going to do animation or digital art.

Anime Herald: How did you end up doing oil painting instead of animation or digital art?

Kai Lun Qu: I was an animation major. I got into Maryland Institute College of Arts. I was studying animation for the first year. I realized it wasn’t a fit for me. My professors realized too. In one of the 3D animation classes they had us create a 3D space. Everyone was doing fantastical spaces [like] a witch’s house or a science lab. I was doing a recreation of a 19th century classical oil painter’s studio, complete with reproductions of paintings. When my professor saw that she said “You’re in the wrong department.” So I switched to oil painting.

I didn’t have enough money to take oil painting classes. Even though I was at an art school, it was a modern art school, so they didn’t support classical training of representational skill-based painting, which was what I wanted to learn. I found myself taking a Greyhound bus to Philadelphia and New York. I would attend ateliers. They are studios that are more like trade schools. Meanwhile, I had no money to take classes there. What they also had were open model sessions where you pay $10 and can paint there. I’d research who the best people were and paint next to them. I’d start visually stealing whatever I could.

The last thing that helped me was Richard Schmid’s book, Alla Prima. That book basically became my holy bible. I learned everything I could from that book.

Anime Herald: Did you ever contact Mr. Schmid?

Kai Lun Qu: Unfortunately no. I think he saw my work. I’ve painted with some of his disciples and associates. He passed away a few years ago. I never got the chance to meet him. Right now what I can do best is uphold his philosophies and the joy of oil painting. That’s why I am here at Lightbox (Expo).

Anime Herald: What inspired you to attend Lightbox Expo specifically?

Kai Lun Qu: That’s the start of another journey. Fast forward; after I learned how to oil paint I started teaching. I was teaching from the second year of college forward. I started a school teaching the classical foundations I wish people had taught to me. I wanted to teach others, since I had done plenty of research.

Anime Herald: You had your own atelier.

Kai Lun Qu: I did. I was doing that for the longest time, and then COVID hit. I realized I had been spending so much time teaching I forgot to pay attention to myself as an artist. I started to paint a lot more for myself. That’s how I got started doing pop culture paintings. In one of my lessons my students said “You say that the techniques were using you could paint anything you want. So prove it. Paint Baby Yoda.”

Kai Lun Qu: That was when The Mandelorian was a big hit. The circle I’m from doesn’t do fan art. They’re conservative, posh, old painters. The idea of doing pop culture fan art is beyond anything they’ve dabbled in. But I did the demonstration. I realized I had never had this much fun painting before. Because it was a subject matter I care about. I love Star Wars. Why aren’t I doing more of this? After that, I started painting other pop culture characters.

My fiance sells her work at anime conventions. I was her assistant. One day she said “You should try painting these pop culture paintings. We see realistic superhero paintings. You should try that.”

I took her advice. I went to a Comic Con convention at WonderCon and exhibited my work. That was six months ago. Everything happened after that show. I got picked up by Marvel as a Marvel Snap artist. I met people willing to give me a table at San Diego Comic Con. I met Lee Kohse, one of Lucas Film’s artists. He’s the one who offered me the table at San Diego Comic Con. That’s where I met one of my good friends Henry Gilroy. He’s the co-writer of Star Wars Clone Wars and Star Wars Rebels. That’s where it feels like my actual career truly started.

Anime Herald: It sounds like things have been moving pretty fast.

Kai Lun Qu: It’s been moving incredibly fast. I’m still in a little bit of shock. I haven’t had time to process everything. For Lightbox (Expo) too! I applied to it because I’m technically a Marvel artist now, so I guess I kind of fit in. I came to Lightbox Expo last year as an attendee last year with my fiance. I felt like a fish out of water but I had a great time because everyone here is so nice. I decided I wanted to come back and participate if they let me. And they were, so here I am today!

Anime Herald: Final question: As a teacher, what general advice would you give to students?

Kai Lun Qu: Study from life as much as possible. Don’t copy pictures. When you study from life you see things in a three-dimensional form. That’s technical advice. General advice: Be a sponge. One thing younger students tell me is “This is my style. I want to cultivate my style. I don’t want to practice this different style of art. That would hinder my art.”

You don’t want to think like that. You want to learn everything. Your style is your accumulation of experience. If you lock off certain techniques, you’ll stunt your growth and limit your artistic expression.

There’s a difference between artistry and foundations. I think that confuses a lot of people. You can’t learn artistry. It’s feeling, experience, taste. You can’t learn that. You can just experience things. But you can learn foundations. That’s something people need to hone in more. There needs to be a proper balance.

Once you do that, getting really good at art is only 50% of the equation. 50% on a test is still an F. The other 50% is branding and marketing. You have to understand how to market yourself. That’s great for extroverts. They just need confidence in their work and that their art can stand on their own. For introverts, pretend you’re an extrovert. That’s all I can say.

Thanks to Kai Lun Qo for sitting down with us. Thanks to Lightbox Expo for making this interview possible.

You can find more of Kai Lun Qo’s work on his website and his Instagram.