Feng Jung-ruei was born in Nanyang City, Henan Province, China in 1934. As warfare between the nationalist and communist forces intensified in 1948, the Chinese government decided to give up on Nanyang, and many civilians became displaced. Feng, like many others, went on exile with his fourth elder brother Feng Jung-yen. On August of 1949, he took a boat trip from Guangzhou to Taiwan. He was accepted by the Department of Fine Arts, Political Staff School in 1952 and joined the Dongshan Battle during the training period. This is considered a very special experience in his life. Feng graduated in 1953 and was assigned to the navy. He saw abstract impressionist paintings in 1956 for the first time and felt amazed. Somehow, he also felt this is the right thing for him. He started to devote himself to creating abstract paintings despite others looked down upon the idea. In 1958, he had a joint exhibition with Hu Chung-chi, Sun Ying and Chu Pen-rui, who co-worked with him in the navy. Together they founded the Four Seas Group. Feng attended the Sao Paulo Biennial in 1959 and joined the Fifth Moon Group as invited by Liu Kuo-sung in 1961. In 1969, Feng retired from the navy and became an art designer for a TV station. He immigrated to the United States in 1975. Today, he has dedicated himself to artistic creation for half a century.

Feng’s abstract ink paintings are best featured by the combination of Chinese literati painting methods and the spirit of modern painting of the west. In this artwork, powerful Chinese brushstrokes and layers of wash, as well as abstract forms, lines, and shapes, can be found. The mixture of black, grey and light blue colors gives a sense of tranquility.

Feng chung-ruei actively participated in the modern art movement in post-war Taiwan by joining the Four Seas and Fifth Moon Groups. In a time when abstract impression was the vogue, Feng picked up a modern, western exression while retaining the essence of Chinese culture that he studied much about. In this way, he was able to blend abstract expressions and traditional landscapes to come up with a style of his own, effectively presenting modernity and tradition at once. His early works look slightly melancholic like the landscape paintings of the Song Dynasty. But after trials and errors, in the 1960s, he developed an approach of blending ink and wash with oil paint, manifesting his own creative style in a much more mature way. It can be said Feng tries to go beyond abstract ink painting and find out what “form” really means. Other than blending modern elements and traditional landscape paintings, he began a research on calligraphy in the 1980s, using calligraphic characters as signifiers and signs in his artworks, reinterpreting art in a daring way.