Artist collaboration · Estate connection
Ma Dongmin: the blue horse behind the label.
Chinese contemporary artist Ma Dongmin has spent more than three decades building a visual language around blue, atmosphere, and the human character of the horse. His connection to Kadenge Estate is personal: Ma is a relative of the estate owner.
The artist
A Western medium, shaped by an Eastern sense of atmosphere.
Published artist profiles and interviews record that Ma Dongmin was born in Daqing, Heilongjiang, in 1968, graduated from the Central Academy of Fine Arts in 1990, and is based in Beijing. His oil paintings bring disciplined Western technique into conversation with Eastern ideas of stillness, memory, space, and inner feeling.
Drawing before atmosphere.
His Central Academy training established a strong command of form. That foundation remains visible beneath the mist, movement, and loosened edges of his mature work.
A defining body of work.
Ma began concentrating on the Blue Horse series in 2011. Blue gives the paintings distance, mystery, and a dreamlike quiet, while the horse carries emotion and momentum.
More than an animal subject.
In Ma’s own account, the horse embodies simplicity, kindness, loyalty, devotion, and an upward spirit. It becomes a way to speak about human feeling rather than merely depict an animal.
Why the blue horse
Stillness and motion, held in one image.
The Blue Horse works bring together a vivid animal presence and an expansive field of colour. The result can feel calm and urgent at once—an image of tenderness, resilience, and movement toward a better horizon.
Loyalty with warmth.
The horse carries kindness and devotion, giving the paintings an emotional centre that feels close to family and shared memory.
Blue as a world.
Blue is not decoration. It creates distance, mystery, stillness, and the sensation of a landscape remembered rather than simply observed.
Always travelling forward.
A lifted head, a driving stride, and a mane caught in motion turn the horse into an image of courage, energy, and aspiration.
From canvas to cellar · Estate connection
The blue horse on this label is Ma Dongmin’s artwork.
Kadenge Estate directly credits Ma Dongmin with creating the blue-horse artwork used on this exact Kaltunga Estate 2017 Blue Horse Shiraz label. As a relative of the Kadenge Estate owner, Ma gives the bottle a meaningful connection to the estate behind it.
This label attribution is presented as first-hand information supplied by Kadenge Estate. The published research below documents Ma’s biography and artistic practice; it does not independently document this private label collaboration.
View the Blue Horse bottles
Artwork Blue-horse image created by Ma Dongmin
Label Kaltunga Estate 2017 Blue Horse Shiraz
Connection Relative of the Kadenge Estate owner
Research and further reading
The public record behind the biography.
These published profiles and interviews support the biographical and artistic context on this page. Open each source to read the original account.
Ma Dongmin on Artsy
Artist biography, selected works, and an overview of his practice.
A conversation about the Blue Horse series
Ma discusses blue, the horse’s character, and the development of the series from 2011.
Read the Sohu interviewBlue Horse at International Equestrian Culture Week
Coverage quoting Ma on the loyalty, kindness, and devotion he seeks to express through the horse.
Read the China Daily coverageCarry the story forward
Meet the artwork on the bottle.
Explore the two Kaltunga Estate 2017 Blue Horse Shiraz bottle presentations featuring Ma Dongmin’s blue horse, or continue into the Kadenge Estate story.