From July 3 to 28, I am exhibiting 9 gouache paintings at the City Art Gallery in San Francisco. Opening, July 5, Friday, 7-10 pm. Here are the pieces I am showing. They are vibrant and colorful, though modest in scale, the emotions are big and bold.
After having worked on a somber series, After Fire, I made a few more cheerful pieces, and I grabbed striking colors. It was great fun to make these vibrant pieces.
On December 2 and 3, fourteen artists and artisans presented paintings, drawings, ceramics, mosaics, and jewelry at Makers Workspace Studio during the East Bay Open Studios (EBOS). It was a successful communal space. I am particularly pleased that my friend Edith Ng presented her beautiful ceramics to the public for the first time, as our guest artist. Her debut brought tremendous energy and many guests to our studio and all of us benefit from her presence.
During the EBOS event, I was able to sell more than a dozen gouache and ink paintings. Here a some of these works:
I am so grateful for all the support I received. Thank you!
In July, I will return to the wonderful co-op gallery in San Francisco: City Art Gallery, which “opened its doors at 828 Valencia St. in 1998 and has remained a constant in the radically changing Valencia corridor.”
Exhibition date: July 5-30
Reception & the City Art’s 25th Anniversary Celebration: July 7, Friday, 7-10 pm Location: 828 Valencia St, San Fransisco (between 19th & 20th)
Gallery Hours: Sun, Wed-Thursday 12-9 pm, Fri/Sat 12-10 pm
My gallery sitting shifts: July 16, Sat, 12-4:30 pm, July 22, Sun, 12-5 pm
Below are the sample of the pieces I will exhibit:
Recently, I started to explore painting with black India ink on synthetic, non-absorbent Yupo paper, whose water-resistant nature can be exploited and allow some interesting effects when the ink is washed, sprayed, scrubbed, and removed. I am happy with the results; these new paintings look richly layered, light and shadow contrasted in a complicated and mysterious way, and the flowing ink traces are often unpredictable, playful, and evocative.
Petals, India Ink on Yupo Paper, 11”x14″, 2023
Petals, India Ink on Yupo Paper, 11”x14″, 2023
Petals, India Ink on Yupo Paper, 11”x14″, 2023
Dandelions, India Ink on Yupo Paper, 14”x11″, 2023
Dandelions, India Ink on Yupo Paper, 14”x11″, 2023
Dandelions, India Ink on Yupo Paper, 14”x11″, 2023
C Major, India Ink on Yupo Paper, 9”x12″, 2023
C Major, India Ink on Yupo Paper, 9”x12″, 2023
C Major, India Ink on Yupo Paper, 9”x12″, 2023
Scour, India Ink on Yupo Paper, 9”x12″, 2023
Scour, India Ink on Yupo Paper, 9”x12″, 2023
Scour, India Ink on Yupo Paper, 9”x12″, 2023
Ripples, India Ink on Yupo Paper, 11”x14″, 2023
Ripples, India Ink on Yupo Paper, 11”x14″, 2023
Ripples, India Ink on Yupo Paper, 11”x14″, 2023
Resting, India ink on Yupo paper, 11″x14″, 2023
Resting, India ink on Yupo paper, 11″x14″, 2023
Resting, India ink on Yupo paper, 11″x14″, 2023
Orbit, India ink on Yupo paper, 11″x14″, 2023
Orbit, India ink on Yupo paper, 11″x14″, 2023
Orbit, India ink on Yupo paper, 11″x14″, 2023
Stone Flower, India Ink on Yupo Paper, 12”x9″, 2023
Stone Flower, India Ink on Yupo Paper, 12”x9″, 2023
Stone Flower, India Ink on Yupo Paper, 12”x9″, 2023
Diffuse, India Ink on Yupo Paper, 14”x11″, 2023
Diffuse, India Ink on Yupo Paper, 14”x11″, 2023
Diffuse, India Ink on Yupo Paper, 14”x11″, 2023
Luxuriant, India Ink on Yupo Paper, 12”x9″, 2023
🔴 Sold
Luxuriant, India Ink on Yupo Paper, 12”x9″, 2023
🔴 Sold
Luxuriant, India Ink on Yupo Paper, 12”x9″, 2023
🔴 Sold
Pervade, India ink on Yupo paper, 14″x11″, 2023
Pervade, India ink on Yupo paper, 14″x11″, 2023
Pervade, India ink on Yupo paper, 14″x11″, 2023
The View, India Ink on Yupo Paper, 12”x9″, 2023
The View, India Ink on Yupo Paper, 12”x9″, 2023
The View, India Ink on Yupo Paper, 12”x9″, 2023
“Whirl” explores patterns, rhythms, and perspective in an abstract world consisting of a series of imperfect and progressively smaller concentric circles, which superimpose over a background of pale pink from the top and dark gray at the bottom, and vanish to the center of a muddied white hue, therefore lead the viewers to a hidden world somewhat beyond reach. The gentle contrasts amongst these muted colors, which seep into each other like liquids, enhance the impenetrability of the sphere.
Whirl
gouache on paper
9″x12″
2021
Dream Forest continued my exploration of monochromatic paintings consisting of interlocking patterns and shades, some simple, some more intricate. This small gouache painting depicted an imaginary forest at night time, when moon light shimmered over truncated trunks and branches, contrasting starkly with dark surrounding. Also, the image somehow resembled a microscopic view of organism, a tiny sliver of macrocosm.
Dream Forest
7” x 11”
Gouache on Paper
Completed in 2018
Identifying myself primarily a representational artist, does not exclude me from time to time being drawn to purely abstract visions, which excite with contrasting or even clashing colors, interplay of of shades, lines, and intricacies of patterns and forms. One of my successful results is a recent gouache painting, Time Frame, which intrigues viewers with ever expanding viewfinders, appealingly complementing secondary colors, and an array of ever shifting lines of different lengths, angles, and hues.
Time Frame
Gouache on Paper
7” x 11”
Completed in 2018
This painting will be exhibited at Berkeley Expression Gallery, September – December 2018, as part of the “Autumn Colors” group exhibition.
One of my attempts to capture fleeting impressions of well-known Greek mythologies resulted in an abstract painting Paris and Three Goddesses, whose pink and golden color blocks in the background signified the dangerous intermingle of the mortal and immortal worlds. Three powerful goddesses, Hera, Athena and Aphrodite, were represented by three richly colored powerful beams, which penetrated the human world below, while circling like sharks of their prey a small globe — the golden apple, to be awarded to the most beautiful one, planted by the spurned goddess of discord.
Poor Paris, represented by the golden color associated with another golden male beauty Apollo, was pinned down by those powerful beams above, and responded with blue sparks, echoing the beam of Aphrodite alone, risking the wrath of Hera and Athena, for the sake of the most beautiful woman on earth, the Queen of Spartan Helen, the promised bribery from goddess of love, and eventually launched thousand ships and unleashed the ten-year Greco-Trojan war, and caused unspeakable misery for many, many more.
Little ones are perennial pitiful playthings of the powerful ones.
Paris and Three Goddesses
Oil on Canvas
14″ x 11″
Completed in 2012
This painting is currently in a Group exhibition Color Speaks (Sep. 23, 2017 – Jan. 20, 2018), in Downtown Berkeley’s vibrant art district.
My recently painting New Century’s Shangri-La is rather visually intriguing — a colorful and orderly semi-abstract landscape/cityscape, serene and paradisal, being menaced by heavy dark storms swirling above, which threaten to crush down at any moment and bring havoc to the orderly world below. The ironic title unfortunately aptly described the state of our world, if not yet today, soon tomorrow.
New Century’s Shangri-La
Oil on Canvas
30″ x 24″
Completed in 2017