Conceptual Foundations and Research Methodology of Personal Memory Scene Construction in Contemporary Chinese Painting

Abstract

Beijing-based practitioners of contemporary Chinese painting, this research investigates how personal memory functions as both a cognitive process and a source material in artistic creation. While thematic and stylistic shifts in Chinese art have attracted growing scholarly attention, existing theory inadequately accounts for the cognitive and procedural mechanisms by which autobiographical memory is transformed into pictorial expression. This article addresses this gap by introducing the Personal Memory Scene Construction (PMSC) framework a process-oriented model linking memory input, cognitive reconstruction, imaginative scene formation, and artistic realization. Empirically, the research adopts a multi-method qualitative design, including in-depth semi-structured interviews with six leading Beijing artists and iconographic - iconological visual research on works representative of the art scene in Beijing. Data were coded and brought together using thematic analysis (Braun and Clarke) and supported by NVivo, resulting in systematic triangulations being made between verbal accounts and the material evidence. Findings reveal that memory in contemporary Chinese painting is not passively retrieved but actively reconstructed: artists deconstruct and re-experience sensory traces, translate affective auras into compositional patterns, and use serial motifs as intermediaries between personal history and cultural identity. Through the PMSC model, three recurring generative mechanisms fragmentation and reassembly, intergenerational dialogue, and symbolic translation are identified to explain the generative capacity of memory in relation to theme, form and technique. The article is theoretically innovative in that it blends cognitive models of reconstructive memory with art-historical analysis, and methodologically in that it presents a qualitative protocol which is likely to be replicable in other studies of such internal creative processes. By centering memory as a creative force, this research establishes a parsimonious and transferable framework for understanding memory-based art across cultures and lays a foundation for future empirical and comparative analyses.