Origins

Fun and carefree, The Peony Girl appreciates nature and beautiful things in life through art, and would like to share them with like-minded people. The paintings use pigments and ink on rice paper or silk, oil on canvas or plywood, or a mixed media with all the available materials. They all celebrate the beauty of peony flowers (peonia) to create an aura of English romance and Oriental elegance. We also produce fashion and lifestyle products. 
The Peony Paintings

My name is Siyuan. It’s pronounced as “see-you-anne”. It’s a Chinese name, but I am international. I spent half of my life in China, and the other half in Europe, including the Netherlands and Britain. 

I’m fanatic about peony (paeonia) flowers. I grow them in my little English cottage garden, study them and paint them. They are regarded as the queen of flowers, the national flower of China, and a popular wedding flower choice across the globe.

Despite being so chic, I’m particularly fascinated to paint semi-doble, bomb and double peonies because of their multiple complicated petal structures. It’s like a challenge for me to explore the conglomerate of petals and I often find myself lost in them with my fine brushes.

Painting peonies is meditative and stressful at the same time.

It’s meditative because it keeps me calm and focused and is a test of my patience and spiritual equilibrium. The process of painting peonies is also a constant struggle - I always explore and experiment different techniques and mixing multiple materials to achieve my desired elegance and romance in my paintings - often fail in the middle of the creation, but then reinvent myself which time after time brings pleasant surprises.

I am a self-taught artist, influenced by many oriental and western artists. I admire  botanical illustrators who creates beautiful plant illustrations with scientific precision. However,  I like to add something special creating unique peony paintings.

My Art Influence

The Contemporary Oriental Influence

My favourite Chinese artist is Guanzhong Wu. He is from my hometown of Suzhou, an ancient and quintessential garden city close to Shanghai, China. His work is true to the Chinese spirit but injected with Western brushstrokes to create paintings that appeal across cultures.

The Impressionism Influence

My favourite Western artists are amongst those Masters of Impressionism: Claude Monet and Vincent van Gogh.  In particular, I find their use of colours and brushstrokes to express light and emotions very impactful.

The Dutch Golden Age Still Life Flower Influence

I love those Dutch Golden Age still-life paintings from the Masters such as Willem van Aelst. They seem so real and capture an age  of elegance and refinement, but also signify the rise and fall of an empire.