Intangible Cultural Heritage Artists at Lan Su

Bai Lin is a leading Beijing Bristle Doll inheritor and museum curator who has long dedicated himself to preserving and innovating China’s intangible cultural heritage. With extensive collaboration with national cultural agencies, international cultural exchange in over 30 countries, and active involvement in public-benefit programs, he promotes heritage education for youth and employment support for people with disabilities. His refined Bristle Doll craft is widely recognized, and his works are collected by major museums in China and abroad.

Su Xu, Representative Inheritor of Linfen Dough Sculpture and First-Class Arts and Crafts Master, is a versatile artist known for his miniature works spanning traditional figures, opera characters, mythological themes, flora and fauna, and contemporary portraits. A member of national and provincial folk art associations and a “Sanjin Talents” young outstanding talent, he grew up immersed in family tradition and later became a professional dough sculptor. His piece Night Reading of Spring and Autumn won the Gold Award at the 2015 Beijing Guoan International Folk Art Expo, and he has promoted the craft through media appearances such as Beijing Television’s Seven Colors of Light. Since 2016, he has represented Chinese folk art in international cultural exchange programs across Russia, the Netherlands, the UAE, France, and other countries.

Qi Yingying, a Beijing Folk Craft Master, has devoted herself to preserving the traditional art of Beijing kites since 2014, studying under renowned master Luo Huanwen (“Kite Luo”). Through years of rigorous training and refinement of the essential skills of painting, framing, pasting, and flying, she has developed a distinctive artistic style and exceptional craftsmanship across hard-wing, soft-wing, flat, and umbrella-wing kites. Her lifelike creations have earned broad recognition, including the Excellence Award at the 2019 “Beijing Gifts” Competition, and her works are collected by public and private museums in France, Germany, Thailand, and beyond. She has also been highly received in cultural exchange programs in Hong Kong and Macau.

Liu Tao, a new-generation sugar painting artist and officially recognized intangible cultural heritage inheritor, was born in 1988 in Fuyang and is now based in Suzhou. Deeply influenced by traditional arts from a young age, he began learning his family’s sugar-painting craft at 16 and later traveled nationwide to study carving, ultimately merging sugar painting and sugar blowing into his signature 3D sugar sculptures. He has twice appeared on CCTV with his mentors and has represented the “Old Beijing Sugar Painting” tradition in Thailand, Cuba, the UAE, France, and other countries. Recognized in 2019 as an inheritor of intangible cultural heritage and honored as a “Top Master” on Jilin TV’s Gao Shou Zai Min Jian, his work has been widely covered by major media.