One of artist Zhiwei Tu's greatest pleasures is to watch someone who is new to his work turn over a painting to see if there is a light shining from behind the canvas. A number of people have paid him this great compliment during his career. To Tu, light is a language, one that he speaks fluently, from its grandest exclamations to its subtlest nuances. To behold one of Tu's paintings is to enter into a dialogue with light and all its meaning.

Born in a poverty-stricken mountain village in Guangdong province, China - and born a child prodigy - Tu was already a celebrated painter in his homeland before moving to the United States in 1987 at the age of 36. He was known for his monumental paintings of legendary episodes from Chinese history, for which he sometimes conducted research for more than a decade before committing to canvas. Every detail in the costumes, every artifact, every gesture of a dancer and expression on a face are the result of meticulous research and thought on the part of the artist.

One of these magnificent historical paintings is on loan to La Posada Resort & Spa, where it is displayed in the library. Chinese New Year Festival, in the 8th Century depicts the celebrations marking the advent of a new year during the Tang dynasty. The emperor would open his palace in Xian to the public for this special circuslike festival of music and dance.

Tu depicts a quieter, more reflective moment in 8th Century Young Woman, an exquisite painting that is part of Tu's solo exhibit at Henington Gallery opening this evening, Aug. 1.

The subject of the painting is a young aristocratic woman skilled in poetry, music and dance. In essence she represents what was considered the epitome of feminine accomplishment during that period, Tu said during a recent telephone interview from his home in Woodridge, Ill. Tu's painting captures this exemplar of feminine beauty just after her musical performance. Her drum and pipa, a Chinese guitar, rest by her side. A golden light from behind her burns with almost firelike intensity.

Tu's solo exhibition at Henington Gallery is aptly named The Meaning of Light. It includes new work - so new that, during the recent telephone interview with Pasatiempo, the artist had to excuse himself to rescue his paintings that were drying outside, as one of those black, Midwestern thunderstorms was threatening to release its payload over his home near Chicago.

The artist plans to paint a portrait during the show's opening. Perhaps his seven years as an art professor in China are what lead him to share his technique in such a generous manner and to feel comfortable painting in front of an audience.

Tu moved to the United States to deepen his knowledge of Western oil painting and raise his value as an art professor. He spoke no English and left behind his wife (a concert violinist) and 8-year- old son. (They were able to join him the following year.) After the end of the Cultural Revolution, China was beginning to open up to Western ideas and art. "The whole country was crazy about America," Tu recalled.

At the time of the trip, Tu was an assistant professor of art at the Guangzhou Institute of Fine Arts in southern China, the same institute from which he had earned his bachelor's degree and first master's degree. Many of Tu's senior colleagues at the institute had studied art in the West before the Cultural Revolution, including his mentor, who had studied at the Chicago Art Institute in 1947. Through his mentor's knowledge and experience, as well as through books and other reproductions, Tu's training involved some exposure to Western ideas and techniques. (He particularly recalled appreciating reproductions of paintings by Nicolai Fechin, the Russian emigre who settled in Taos in 1923.) Still, the restrictions imposed during the Cultural Revolution had kept Western art out of the country, leaving Tu to only imagine what the great Western oil paintings would look like in person. For that reason, both Tu and his colleagues at the institute felt that some study in the West was imperative for his development as an artist.

Two years into his graduate studies in painting at Drake University, the 1989 massacre in Tiananmen Square in Beijing dissolved Tu's hope of returning to his homeland. His academic colleagues back in China begged him to stay in the United States for his own safety, and the U.S. government granted him political asylum. Tu now lives in a suburb of Chicago, where he paints full time in a spacious studio attached to his home.

Tu's show at Henington focuses on two of the artist's favorite subjects: the ballet and the Native American. His love for the shapes and movement of ballet dates back to his undergraduate studies at the Guangzhou Institute of Fine Arts, which had a prestigious ballet school. Tu took every opportunity to see the dance. Now a continent away, the artist finds inspiration in visiting the studios of the Midwest Ballet Theater in Downers Grove and attending the many fine ballet performances that Chicago has to offer.

The artist's fascination with the Native American emerged while he lived in China, through his exposure to the works of Howard Terpning, Andrew Wyeth and magazines about the West. Tu said he was struck by the physical resemblance between Tibetans, many of whose portraits he had painted, and Native Americans. Even though the artist was aware that Native Americans originally came from Asia, the similarities still surprised and inspired him.

Tu's several large portraits of Native Americans in the show are stunning, as is his smaller, more intimate portrait of a Tibetan girl, her face framed with gold coins and a brilliant red scarf. Clearly the artist brings the same attention to detail to his portraits that he does to his monumental historical works.

Since Tu moved to the United States, his work has continued to reap awards and honors. He claimed the Special Collective Gold Prize of the World Cultural Convention in Algiers in 1987 and the American National Award of Excellence from Oil Painters of America in 1998.

Tu is one of 14 Master Signature Members of the OPA. His career has included more than 20 solo shows and 50 group shows in Beijing, Hong Kong and Guangdong, China, Taipei in Taiwan, Tokyo in Japan, Algeria, Thailand, Singapore, Canada, France, England and all over the United States, from sea to shining sea.

DETAILS

The Meaning of Light, paintings by Zhiwei Tu
Artist's reception 5-8 p.m. today, Aug. 1; exhibit through Aug. 20
Henington Gallery, 731 Canyon Road, 992-0300