Fang Xu is an artist, designer, and professor of art & design. Over the past 35 years, he has taught at the Academy of Arts & Design of Tsinghua University in Beijing, the Queensland College of Arts, Griffith University in Brisbane, and the School of Art & Design at the UNSW in Sydney. He has also served as a visiting professor at Tsinghua Academy of Fine Arts, Sichuan Academy of Fine Arts, Xi'an Academy of Fine Arts, Guangxi Arts University, and Taiwan National Yunlin University of Science and Technology. He has made positive contributions to the cooperation in art and design education between Australian and China’s universities, and the exchange of artists between the two countries.
Fang graduated with honours from the Academy of Arts & Design of Tsinghua University in 1983 and 1986 with bachelor’s and master’s degrees and stayed on to teach. In the academy, he studied under famous art and design masters, such as Zhang Ding, Wu Guanzhong, Yuan Yunpu, Bai Xueshi, Pan Changhou, He Zhenqiang. After coming to Australia, he worked with several well-known architects in urban & architectural design firms. The blending of Eastern and Western education and cross-disciplinary artistic practice experience have developed his unique creative insights, design practice and teaching style.
Professor Xu participated, presided over and completed a hundred art and design projects. Representative works include the design competition of Sydney 2000 Olympic Games Athletes Village and Sydney University‘s Education School, Brisbane's Chinatown renewal, Brisbane City Hall Museum and Art Gallery, Shenzhen Nanshan District Cultural and Commercial Center, Beijing National Museum of Overseas Chinese History, Wenzhou Branch Headquarter of the Communications Bank, Wenzhou Historical & Cultural District, personalized custom design of private residences, etc.
Over the years, he has been pursuing his passion for painting, and is good at using sketches to capture the various moments of people's daily life. His works have a unique style. Remarkably, his urban sketches are favoured and collected by many art galleries, university art galleries and private collectors. In recent years, he has also been invited to hold drawings workshops for the Prince Charles Foundation, the Heritage NSW, and the Royal Australian Institute of Architects. He has been actively supporting cultural and artistic activities in various Chinese communities in Australia. He has written forewords and reviews for monographs, exhibitions, and albums of many Chinese artists.