Featured Painting – Autumn Impression

The inspiration of my 2017 oil painting, Autumns Impression was a photo I chance encountered – a room of eerie green light, resembling electric currents, against a background of a irregular pattern of wavering pink tiles. Besides the striking color palette, I was also intrigued by the shifting spatial relationship between the light and the background, thus moved to commit my appreciation to canvas.

Naturally, I would not ape the photograph; rather, the photo served as a springboard for me to “record” my vision. The painting soon departed from the electric glow, and morphed into an impressionistic abstract landscape, and reached a state that I could stop and consider the project complete, though the painting was not truly satisfying.

With layers of additional paints applied to the canvas, it moved further away from the inspiration and my initial attempt. Now, the colors of painting somewhat recalled what I saw in Yosemite National Park I visited last fall, therefore, a new resolution presented itself and I happily complied.

I managed to find the good balance of recalling the spirit of a slightly unhinged forest or meadow, softened by some darting patches of rather joyous colors, without being slavishly realistic. It’s a recollection of memories and emotions. The spatial relationship of many elements and colors of the painting, though not the same as the photograph, was also similarly intriguing.

Autumn Impression / 秋季印象 / Herbst Impression
Autumn Impression
Oil on Canvas
36”x18”
Completed in 2017

Featured Painting – Wildflowers

My 2014 gouache painting, Wildflowers was inspired by a visit to a riverbank park in my home city, Shenyang. It was spring time and the abundant wildeflowers lent colors and joy to the large expanse of dark green meadow, just in front of some dignified woods. It was a joy to encounter this cheerful sight, yet with certain gravitas, in the usually gray and somber city. It was even more joyful to be able to capture such wonderful memory of my home city in a magical moment.

Wildflowers / 野花 / Wildblumen
Wildflowers
Gouache on Paper
7”x10.25”
Completed in 2014

Featured Painting – The Wash

My first oil painting completed in 2017, The Wash, continued to explore and express spatial relationship and (ir)regular patterns. This landscape was inspired by some haunting though dimming images crossed path with me a long while ago, of some laundered white sheets, blown wildly by strong wind, struggling to remain on the laundry lines. The rhythmic movements of those flapping sheets generated an atmosphere of both orderly and unruly, and such sense of drama was heightened by the stark contrasts between the blindingly bright sheets and the dark soil and sky, which foretold a menacing storm, poising to ruin the pristine cleanness of those vulnerable sheets.

The Wash / 晒衣物 / Die Wasch
The Wash
Oil on Canvas
22”x28”
Completed in 2017

Featured Painting – Cascades

Inspired by the lush fall colors in the valleys, and rushing cascades in the mountains of Yosemite, which I recently visited, I made a gouache painting, titled Cascade, trying to capture the spirits and impression of the marvel, instead of literal shapes and shades.

Cascades / 瀑布 / Kaskaden
Cascade
Gouache on Paper
12”x8”
Completed in 2017

A simple and heart-warming souvenir.

Featured Painting “Mirage” – A World of Ambiguity

My Mirage, a fantastic painting, was based on a vision visited me when I was falling asleep but with enough mental presence to get up to make quick notes – a distant town, whose outlines barely discernible, in the manner of those commonly seen in old Dutch or Flemish landscape paintings, overwhelmed by several enormous and boldly sketched black feathers floating above the sky. Behind those dark and somewhat ominous feathers, a delicately pretty pale blue sky flashed through persistently. Yet, despite the seemingly menace, those dark feathers also looked rather protective and comforting. A world of ambiguity.

Mirage / 蜃景 / Luftspiegelung
Mirage
Oil on Canvas
22″ x 28″
Completed in 2016

Featured Painting – Birches

Nurtured by many Russian novels while growing up, I developed a special feeling towards the omnipresent birches, which not only aptly set the scenes and evoke the particular melancholy especially associated with Russia and Russian people, and finally, I made effort in 2006 to try to capture such feelings with a painting titled Birches, which is currently showing at the McGuire Real Estate gallery in Berkeley as part of the “Crowded by Beauty” exhibit.

I love the slender shapes of the trees, the softness of the finely-layered birch barks and their eerie silver color, and above all, the eye-shaped knobs imprinted on the trunks from bottom to top, as if birches were meant to be the chosen observers from silent world, so as to judge humankind.

Birches / 樺樹 / Birken
Birches
Oil on Canvas
22″ x 28″
Completed in 2006

That painting is also a play of optical illusion – amongst the eyes on the trunks, there was a singular eye floating in the space, unattached, between two indifferent birches. Inundated by so many eyes, this oddity was not immediately obvious; once detected, one might ask, if this is a most determined birch eye, the eye of an invisible human, or just a wandering independent eye belong to nothing and no one.

Featured Painting – “Forest Within” – When Reality Met Illusion

My 2005 oil painting Forest Within, currently showing at the McGuire Real Estate gallery in Berkeley as part of the “Crowded by Beauty” exhibit, is a play of optical illusion – the painting is a seemingly outdoor scene, yet the landscape is framed within a boxy confinement, and beams of light cast from behind and the shadows fall on the real or imaginary wall further enhances the blur of the boundary, where interior met exterior, reality met illusion.

Forest Within / 内置森林 / Innerhalb Wald
Forest Within
Oil on Canvas
24″ x 30″
Completed in 2005

Featured Painting: The March of Time

My recent oil painting The March of Time was a chromatic piece, masking details with broad strokes, employing repetitive patterns to emphasis the underlying messages, and exploring the deep emotions with subtle tonal variation.

The painting depicted a wasted land – wreckage of houses in various degree of decay, scattered around a no-man’s land in spots where they once proudly stood but barely hanging on with ineffective supports of crutches and buttresses. This wasteland was the product of ruthless time, as manifested in the title; yet, it was hard not to think what humans, who once built and occupied those now abandoned structure, had contributed to this vast span of ruin.

The March of Time / 時光的流逝 / Der Lauf der Zeit
The March of Time
Oil on Canvas
24″ x 30″
Completed in 2016

This painting was selected to be part of the “Fresh Works VII” juried exhibition at Firehouse Arts Center’s Harrington Gallery in Pleasanton in May through June 2017, and was recognized with a Honorable Mention Award, by Juror Ryan Reynolds, Assistant Professor of Art at Santa Clara University.

Featured Pastel Painting “Typhoon”

My first successful pastel painting, Typhoon, is an abstract piece inspired by devastating typhoons unfortunately have been creating ever-heavier havoc recently, due to the undeniable climate change. Exploring spatial relationships, subtle variations of tones and shifting of patterns, I tried to capture the something unpredictable and the menacing.
Typhoon / 颱風 / Taifun
Typhoon / 颱風 / Taifun
Pastel on Paper
8.5” x 11”
Completed in 2015

This painting is currently being exhibited at Expressions Gallery in Berkeley, in a show aptly titled “Into the Future”.

“Shadow” Over the Land – Featured Painting

My landscape/allegorical oil painting, Shadow, depicts a fantastic world – a vast furrowed dark brown field, whose parallel ridges converge towards the distant horizon, which was dotted with a cluster of very insignificant white buildings, centering on a little church spire, which was barely visible. The contrast between the enormous dark fields and the tiny white village is highly dramatic, yet that is topped by several huge leaden and apparently weighty clouds, which curiously cast no shadows; instead, adds mysterious and menacing atmosphere, gliding over the entire field, s a huge shadow of an invisible bird, very much the personification of foreboding.

Shadow / 影子 / Schatten
Shadow / 影子 / Schatten
Oil on Canvas
30″ x 40″
Completed in 2008

Interestingly, this painting just joined a group show, titled “In to the Future”. Perhaps, this ominous world is the vision of the future?