Oil Painting “Mackerel”

Posted on March 20, 2015 by mfsadmin

I am very proud of my 2007 oil painting “Mackerel”, in which I managed to capture both beautiful and sinister elements of a daily object, fulfilling a most tantalizing pursuit of mine.

With its intense colors and bold strokes, this painting economically presents a sleekly fish, intently staring upwards, as if ready to confront its captor; at the meanwhile, its eye also betrayed the fish’s sad resignation to its imminent demise. The background of the painting was plain drop cloth, hatched lightly, and dominated by sickly greenish-yellow from the left and graduated to an intense blue to the right. The intense vertical blue patch also represents the deep water being turned upright, in a disorientated world.

Mackerel
Oil on Canvas
28″ x 22″
Completed in 2007

This painting was just awarded of 1st 2015 ArtSlant Showcase Winner.

It was also selected for exhibition at ViewPoint 2009, 41st Annual National Juried Art Competition, Cincinnati Art Club, Ohio, November 2009.

This painting was included in two-person show at Trilogy Studio, San Francisco, 2011, and it was exhibited at Artist-Xchange Gallery, San Francisco, in 2009.

Allegorical Painting “Birds and Men”

Posted on February 24, 2015 by mfsadmin

I don’t consider myself as a colorist; yet, sometimes, I managed to utilize some vibrant colors to create paintings with vibrant colors, bold, striking, yet harmonious, such as my 2003 oil painting, Birds and Men.

Birds and Men / 鳥與人 / Vögel und Menschen, Oil on Canvas, 30

11 Paintings Completed in 2003 (part 1 of 2)

With that painting, and several others made in 2003, I started my Apocalypse Series, intended to document human sufferings inflicted by reckless or repressive political, religious or cultural forces. The direct impetus to create such series was the impending invasion of Iraq, led by George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Tony Blair, Condoleezza Rice, and Colin Powell, et. al.

As stated in my standard bio: “Life is a harsh experience, yet it is beautiful. Art ought to be from life, and above life. To merely document surfaces is not enough: I want to grasp what is behind, which to me is far more compelling and worthwhile.

As with many artists, my early work is grounded in realism, and evolved into a style that retains a representative cast but rejects slavish naturalism. I immerse myself in the patterns and rhythms of forms, particularly the contradiction between the surface beauty and harsh subjects, and from these foci has formed a distinctive style. The subject matter of my work ranges from portraiture and landscape/cityscape, to allegories and abstraction.”

Bird Painting “Crow”

Posted on January 26, 2015 by mfsadmin

Crows are fascinating animals – omnipresent, prophetic and somewhat sinister. There were many crows hover around my neighborhood and quite often I was struck by the peculiar complex air they exude when they perched high on telephone poles, which dotted and dominated the bleak urban/suburban landscape of my environ.

I was moved by such vision to create a painting, titled simple Crow, depicting a lone crow in a forlorn urban space, aiming to capture such leaden atmosphere and desolate melancholy.

Crow / 烏鴉 / Krähe
Oil on Canvas
24″ x 18″
Completed in 2009

Now, this Crow has been shipped to San Diego, for a show titled “The Crow Show: An Homage to The Raven” in Studio Door Gallery.

Exhibition Dates: February 2 – 27, 2015 Mission Valley Reception: February 5, 2015 6:00 – 9:00 PM Ray Street Reception: February 6, 2015 6:00 – 9:00 PM.

Prior to that, it was exhibited in the gallery of a legendary recording studio in San Francisco, Studio Trilogy in 2011:

Featured Oil Painting “Quest”

Posted on December 13, 2014 by mfsadmin

Quest
Oil on Canvas
16″ x 20″

My latest oil painting, Quest, is a mystery piece – whose underlying message, even evades my own grasp, as the painting was, once again, built upon an image visited my mind when I was in the state of between sleep and awake, repeating the experience inception of another featured painting, Father and Son.

The focus of Quest was a blurry figure, either a man or a woman, who gingerly and wearily treads on a bridge or a pathway, which could be floating on a vast body of water, or suspending in the sky. The weary traveler’s situation on the pathway was quite precarious, and he or she was in danger of slipping off the bridge; yet the traveler pressed on, hands raised, head bent and steps hesitant. Therefore, this painting could be interpreted as either a cautionary story, or a depiction of a spiritual journey, a journey or penance, a quest for truth, or relentless self-discovery. A quest.

The starry sky, in vibrant blue, decorated with moving yellowish green lights, was highly dramatic and textured, reflecting the turmoil inside the traveler; down below, there was a large body of smooth green water, interlaced with bright long red waves, soothing and seductive, pacifying yet can be just as dangerous as Narcissus’s pond.

This ambiguous, elusive and dichotomic piece reflects the perpetual anxiety of self-conscious human kind.

Featured Oil Painting “Father and Son”

Posted on November 24, 2014 by mfsadmin

Father and Son
oil on canvas, 20″x16″, 2013

Often, when I started to drift into sleep at night, my restless mind would conjure up some images more imaginative than I could think of when I was wide awake. Sometimes, during those dreamy moments, my mind kept its presence and I was able to rouse my in order to make a quick sketch or to, attempting to capture those fleeting impressions.

A recent such instance presented me an entangled group of tight embracing muscular bodies, in agony or ecstasy. In the end, my decipher of the image drew the conclusion that it presented the embrace and reconciliation of estranged persons who ought to be close to each other, father and son.

Base on that quick sketch, I made a monochromatic and muted yet quite evocative and powerful painting, on the theme of Prodigal Son.

The strength of this piece lies in its universal touching theme, the heartbreaking posture of those once broken men, the strong outlines of the figures and the high relief of the bodies.

The painting is small in format but big in the feelings it emotes.

Featured Oil Painting “Upstream”

Posted on October 29, 2014 by mfsadmin

Last week, I shipped to Seattle my 2008 oil painting, Upstream, which has been selected for the juried show, 2014 Evergreen Association of Fine Arts (EAFA) Open Exhibition, at EAFA Gallery in the Seattle Design Center (5701 Sixth Avenue South, Suite P292, Seattle, WA 98108).

This modest painting, measured 24″ by 18″, semi-abstract in style, clearly influenced by Chinese ink painting, depicts a fish or two struggles to swim upstream, against the current. It is fitting for the painting to travel to Seattle, because it was in that city when I witnessed an amazing salmon run in Chittenden Locks Fish Ladder several years ago.

Upstream
oil on canvas, 24″x18″, 2008

This painting was not a frank documentation of that fish ladder scene; rather, when I painted it, I was trying to capture a free spirit, a spirit to overcome adversaries. I deliberated chose a black and white color scheme, and a bold, almost abstract outline, as I was mostly interested in something elemental, less representational.

This work surely has a charmed life and earned a fair bit of recognitions – in 2009, it was published in The William and Mary Review by The College of William and Mary, Virginia, Volume 47.

Featured Oil Painting “July Meteors”

Posted on September 26, 2014 by mfsadmin

July Meteros
oil on canvas, 20″x16″, 2014

The title of this painting, July Meteors, originates from a Chinese phrase, 七月流火, which means that in July, when stars move westbound, cooler weather arrives soon; I have always been drawn to the mystic and somewhat fatalistic image of this concise yet profound phrase, without much understanding.

Right before the Fourth of July this year, suddenly there was some unexpected disturbances took place in my life and I was mostly assailed by shock and dismay, out of all things, and soon I was enveloped in a chill, much colder than the already too cool San Francisco summer.

It was the realization of abrupt and decisive change caused me much alarm and disquietness and then I suddenly understand the meaning of that phrase, and the helplessness sedimented through thousands years of valiant and often futile struggle, and composed this rather evocative abstract piece, to channel my compound feelings.

I entered this piece for a juried exhibition and silent auction at Berkeley Art Center and it was accepted for the event.

Exhibition: October 18-25, 2014
Gallery hours: Wednesday – Sunday 11:00am – 5:00pm

Silent Auction Fundraiser:
Saturday, October 25, 5-9 pm
– VIP Reception 5-6 pm $70 VIP Ticket
– Auction Main Event: 6-9 pm $40 Auction Ticket

Gouache Painting “The Innocents: The Innocents – Dedicated to the victims of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17”

Posted on July 27, 2014 by mfsadmin

The magnitude of the unspeakable tragedy of the downing of the civilian Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 by a mission in the war-torn region of eastern Ukraine was hard to fathom and absolutely cannot be accepted in a civil global society. Everyone with righteous mind mourns the loss of near 300 people, on their way to return to their homes, to see their friends and families, to go to work, or to make holidays.

I was deeply touched by the tragedy and channeled my feeling into a gouache painting, commemorate this utterly senseless tragedy.

The Innocents / 無辜者 / Unschuldige Personen – Dedicated to the victims of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17
Gouache on Paper
8″ x 11.5″
Completed in 2014

Originally posted on my blog: The Innocents – Dedicated to the victims of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 (20 July 2014)

Oil Painting “The Triumph of Saint George”

Posted on June 18, 2014 by mfsadmin

Just when the ill-conceived and ill-fated Iraq-invasion led by US president George W. Bush keeps and the prime minister of UK, Tony Blair, finally started to fade from our collective consciousness, it sprang back with vengeance in the tides of horrible stories and images.

Now, confronted with the terrifying aftermath of their reckless joint-decision, George W. Bush keeps mum, while Tony Blair tries desperately to white-wash his hands, yet however often he screamed “Out, damned spot! out, I say!”, his hands, together with those of GWB’s and Dick Cheney’s, would forever be stained with blood, gushed from the mangled bodies of US soldiers and Iraqi people.

During his horrible and incompetent presidency, George W. Bush (GWB) was often criticized as an imbecile ninny occupying a high office due to his fabulous family connection – his father Georg Bush was the president of the US from 1989 to 1993. To me, that argument was incorrect and way too benevolent. GWB did many horrible things not due to his stupidity, but his fundamental believe in those horrible things.

To me, this painting of mine below, The Triumph of Saint George, created during the time he was drumming up the invasion of Iraq in 2003, reflects what he was; the painting also jump-started my ongoing Apocalypse Series, to commemorate the miseries of humankind.

The Triumph of Saint George
oil on canvas, 48″x30″, 2003

11 Paintings Completed in 2003 (part 2 of 2)

I had hoped that what I depicted in that painting would be simply a warning sign, rather than, unfortunately, a most awful prophecy as it turned out.

History will remember George W. Bush and Tony Blair, not kindly. As an artist, it was my duty to record and reflect the time I live in.

Oil Painting “Interaction” – A Group Portraits

Posted on May 20, 2014 by mfsadmin

Painting portraits can be very challenging and rewarding – how to capture the spirits of the sitters, how to render the physiognomies and the postures faithfully yet with artists’s personal touches, how to connect the sitters to the viewers, and most importantly, to ensure the relevancy of painted portraits in the era of digital cameras and smartphones.

One of my best portraits was a group of young men, me in the middle and two college friends at the two sides of the canvas. We sat on stone benches, looking serious and somewhat despondent, and aimed our eyes away from another, into different directions. It was a moment of uncertainty, a private consultation in a group setting, a dialogue with oneself, and a congregation without exchanges. I titled it “Interaction”. My relatively broad brushstrokes rendered the bushes in the background a hallucinatory backdrop, and the deliberately bland facial features were economically outlined – a kind of abstraction.

Interaction / 交流 / Interaktion
Oil on Canvas
30″ x 48″
Completed in 2002

10 Paintings Completed in 2002 (part 1 of 2)

I am quite proud of this work, as it captured the spirit of then Chinese collage students, who were facing very uncertain futures, in the age of political corruption and crackdown around the time of 1989 Tian’anmen (Tiananmen) Massacre and a very harsh economic future. I just posted a blog on my trip to Beijing during the time the martial law was about to be declared in Beijing and the ordeals my fellow students and I endured during the sit-in on Tian’anmen Square, which will explain more of the background story to this painting, a souvenir of my youth: 25 Years Later, Smell of Exhausted Tian’anmen “Warriors” Lingered.

This painting was selected for 23rd Annual National Juried Exhibition, Berkeley Art Center, July 23 – August 26, 2006.

Matthew Felix Sun

— Award-Winning San Francisco Bay Area Fine Artist

Category Archives: My Painting