While still a student, she spent four months copying Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368) murals at Yongle Palace, a Taoist temple complex in Shanxi province. The experience sparked her fascination with color arrangements in Chinese art.
Visits to Europe and Japan in the 1980s further broadened her thinking. She began experimenting with ways to enrich the palette of Chinese painting, drawing from both natural materials and modern artificial methods.
Jiang often noted that ancient painters worked with a limited range of pigments, yet still achieved remarkable richness through subtle combinations. She especially admired the Dunhuang murals, where gentle blends of green and ocher, touched with red and blue, reflected what she described as the "Chinese aesthetic pursuit of harmony".
The distinctive blue that appears repeatedly in her paintings emerged from years of experimentation. She often placed the color in unexpected areas, such as flower petals, to create an atmosphere of calm grace. In one work displayed in the exhibition, the leaves of a banana plant are painted blue, while the leaves behind them recede into gray and black. The restrained contrasts heighten the quiet mood of the scene.
Her interest in pigments may also have reflected the influence of her father, who taught chemistry at a university. Jiang often approached painting with the curiosity of a researcher.
One of her diary pages from 2012, included in the exhibition, captures the discipline of her daily practice: "Today I'm drawing legs. Legs never turn out right for me. After studying (my own legs) in the mirror for a while, I managed to draw them more accurately …There will be a figure skating competition on television, which may help me study the female athletes' legs as well."
She frequently recalled the advice of another mentor from her college years, the celebrated painter Li Keran (1907-89): "To have the heart of a poet, the mind of a philosopher, the perspective of a scientist, and the skill of an acrobat."
"This has been the lifelong motto of my artistic journey," she said.
