The freedom I enjoyed while painting the last sketch in August encouraged me to keep experimenting along the same path. I began September by completely abandoning human references. My logic was simple: if I didn’t have a photo to lean on, I could concentrate on artistic expression. Too often, when I started a portrait, I had ideas beyond likeness and accuracy, but as the work progressed, those ideas got lost in the pursuit of a “correct” painting.
I began with two portraits of traditional Japanese women, aiming for an atmosphere of softness and antiquity. Next came two modern women, with a focus on expressiveness. Here are the paintings:
To some extent, I think I achieved what I set out to do—especially in the paintings of the modern women. Looseness has always been difficult for me when a photo sits in front of me. But these exercises also revealed a problem: without a reference to a real person, my “inventions” tend to drift toward the generic and idealized. If I kept going this way, the future paintings might all start looking alike.
So in the next piece, I returned to reworking an actual photo reference. While I liked the result, the painting tightened up compared to those done without references.
from Earthsworld
Then I tried something in between. I didn’t use a photo, but I did use a face I know very well. Instead of inventing features from scratch, I largely followed what I thought was me (with plenty of upgrades, of course). The result was also somewhere in between. It’s not as loose as the invented portraits, but more relaxed than those painted from a photo. And to be honest, I really like my new look.
One more thing delighted me in these experiments: I’ve been thinking and tried in recent years about returning watercolor (without abandoning oil). In some of these works, I managed—at least partly—to capture the fluidity of watercolor I’ve missed so much. It’s not perfect, but it’s got me excited to keep playing around.
August was a busy month for everything except art. I only managed a few portrait sketches. It’s been a while since I focused on this genre, so for inspiration, I turned to my beloved photographer, Earthsworld, whose work I referenced in a small series called “Turquoise in Earth’s World.”
Unlike those turquoise painting, this time I spent at most 2 to 3 hours on each piece. I started every one with a Zorn palette, but sometimes deviated from it later on for convenience. Some sketches are on paper, others on canvas board. In most of them, I aimed for a resemblance to the reference, and only simplified the backgrounds or clothing patterns for aesthetics and to save time. The exception is the last one, where I attempted something creative – I used Earthsworld’s photo only as an inspiration to reinvent a character in my mind. As you can see, the neck area doesn’t make much sense anatomically, and if this becomes a full painting, I need to and will spend more time figuring it out. Enjoy:
July kept the floral theme in my studio, with petals and my learning progressing.
First up, I tried my hand at a peony. As I have mentioned before, Michael Klein is a big influence to me in the floral adventure, and peonies are featured in many of his creations. Those fluffy blooms look dreamy, but they’re a nightmare to paint and arrange. Petals were numerous and messy, dropping faster than I could arrange them in any manageable shape — whether in vase or on canvas. Soon I gave up my grand vision of a complex still life, and managed a simple single flower sketch.
Peony, oil on canvas board, 11 x 14, July 2025
To comfort myself afterwards, I moved back to roses, a familiar subject. I thought a Trompe l’oeil (French: deceive the eye) would make the painting of a single rose more challenging and fun. The idea was basically a hyper realistic painting. Getting the shadows and texture just right was trickier than I expected. My rose still looks like a painting. Here I have a better understanding of why people always say you don’t paint exactly what you see, even in a realistic painting. I used ambient room light in my setting, and the rose was largely in a unified color. To make it “pop”, I need to accentuate the value contrast, vary the saturation, and better define the edges. To make it look real, I need to invent the reality – how ironic! As you can see, I didn’t go through these steps. I am not entirely sure I have the skill to reach the final goal, and honestly, I like the painting as is now. Sometimes you call it done and move on.
Yellow Rose, oil on canvas board, 9 x 12, July 2025
Next came a colorful bouquet, and my strong desire to paint something vibrant. In setting up the reference, my first thought was a dark, solid background for contrast. It worked, but it felt too safe. Leaning into the chaos, I draped a multicolored scarf behind the bouquet. I painted the scarf and surface in an abstract style, playing with saturation and value to keep things lively but balanced.
Colorful, oil on canvas board, 18 x 18in, July 2025
Between these floral adventures, I did a partial study of a Bouguereau painting. I’ve always admired his delicate and subtle handling of human faces, and this is also a study of handling backlighting. The softness is achieved through close value and gentle brushwork. When the entire face is away from light, the values are further condensed – something I still need to work on. I also painted a “selfie” as an alternate character—don’t ask. I was hoping for a Morandi-ish low-chroma tranquility… or, a quirky experiment in calm tones.
Bouguereau StudyBouguereau’s OriginalSelfie, oil on canvas board, 8×10 in, July 2025
Lastly, MidJourney has pushed out video generation in recent months, and now you can upload your own image for animation (see the painting for the first video here). Like these:
Don’t laugh. The bizarreness comes from my own skill issues – both in painting and in prompting. Look at the shadows in the second video, that wisdom wasn’t from me. There are millions of fantastic generative videos out there for us to see the potential of extending and alternating the life of our paintings. Always more things to experience and explore!
Floral still life painting, though a major genre, never quite resonated with me. An early teacher once said that flowers were boring— it’s just petal after petal, repetitive work. The elaborate Dutch master bouquets, which I never loved, seemed to confirm his view. Over time, I discovered artists like Shirley Trevena, with her vibrant, stylized designs, and Richard Schmid, with his fresh, organic blooms. Their work—whether bold or subtle—was far from dull. My perspective began to shift.
While taking online courses at Watts Atelier, I followed Jeff Watts’ still life exercises (more here) and realized flowers are a great way to practice color mixing. I’ve created a few floral paintings with varying success (eg 1, eg 2), but even with the setup in front of me, I often relied too much on photos. Photos help capture the ever-changing shapes of the fresh flowers, but lose the subtle hues and shades in the petals, especially in shadow areas. Recently, I watched some videos of Michael Klein and Ashwini Bharathula painting, and their skillful, thoughtful process captivated me. There’s no tedious repetition; each stroke results from careful evaluation and beautiful execution. Inspired, I embraced florals and decided to focus on them for a while. I deliberately avoided taking photos of the setup this time to train my eyes.
Here are my recent paintings:
Roses in Green Vase, oil on canvas board, 12 x 16, 04/2025Roses in Glass Vase, oil on canvas board, 14 x 18, 06/2025Warmth, oil on canvas board, 11 x 14, 06/2025Red, oil on paper, 9 x 12, 06/2025Yellow Roses, oil on canvas board, 14 x 18, 06/2025
The two with whitish roses were the most challenging. Reflecting on it, white is such a difficult color—catching every bit of light—that I probably should’ve tackled it later with more experience. In the green vase painting, I struggled to make the flowers stand out. Up close, they look fine, but from afar, they’re flat. I had to darken the petal shadows more than I thought I saw to give them depth. The glass vase piece, with its scattered, broken petal pattern, was hard to unify. In the end, I leaned into the chaos, using short strokes to disrupt the background and table too, hoping this fragmented style would tie everything together.
Overwhelmed by the whites, I turned to a warm-colored flower next. The background in the setup had neutral tones and the lighting was plain daylight, but I warmed the surroundings up to match the flower’s glow.
The red rose bud painting brought me the most joy—a small piece I finished in one sitting. Aiming for a quick study, I used bold, decisive strokes to lay down contrasting color blocks. Pleased with the result, I carried this approach into the yellow roses painting, giving it a slightly stylized feel.
That’s my June wrapped up! With summer just beginning and flowers in full bloom, I’m excited to keep exploring.
The Today Art Museum in Beijing recently hosted “Brilliant and Epic,” an Alphonse Mucha exhibition showcasing nearly 200 original works, from posters and paintings to drawings and decorative designs. Intertwining the splendor of Mucha’s commercial art with the grandeur of his nationalistic narratives, the show intended to reveal the duality of his legacy: a master of Art Nouveau’s aesthetic revolution and a spiritual chronicler of Slavic heritage. Inspired by this exhibition, I offer not a formal review but a personal reflection on Mucha’s art, his destiny as an artist, and the enduring resonance of his vision.
A Personal Encounter: Mucha’s Painterly Mastery
My first encounter with Alphonse Mucha was not through his iconic posters but in a composition class, where I studied two of his 1920s oil paintings: Fate (1920) and Girl with Loose Hair and Tulips (1920). These works captivated me with their bold compositions and nuanced value choices. In Girl, the natural curvature of the seated figure contrasts with the geometric wall behind her, while her cascading hair divides the canvas into expansive shapes. The intricate folds of her dress and the unruly texture of her hair play against the wall’s emptiness, with muted tones punctuated by the vibrant red of a tulip. The result is a serene yet vibrant harmony, a balance of peace and subtle tension. Similarly, Fate juxtaposes a vast cream-white space above with the intricate patterns and folds below, the woman’s intense gaze and powerful hands set against the soft texture of the fabric. Every inch of these paintings feels deliberate, a testament to Mucha’s skill.
Fate, oil on canvas, 51.5×533.5cm, 1920Girl with Loose Hair and Tulips, oil on canvas, 77 x 67 cm, 1920
My composition teacher remarked that Mucha’s fame as a decorative artist often overshadows his prowess as a painter. I was struck by Mucha’s use of liubai (leaving blank space), a technique central to traditional Chinese painting, where open spaces balance intricate details to achieve a minimalist-maximalist harmony, while guiding the viewer’s eyes without overwhelming them. Walking through the exhibition, it was obvious that the posters and designs reinforced how this harmony, rooted in liubai 留白, distinguishes Mucha’s work across mediums. Furthermore, both his painterly and decorative works were grounded in realistic sketches and live models, revealing a traditional approach beneath his stylized designs.
My composition teacher remarked that Mucha’s fame as a decorative artist often overshadows his prowess as a painter. I was struck by Mucha’s use of liubai (leaving blank space), a technique central to traditional Chinese painting, where open spaces balance intricate details to achieve a minimalist-maximalist harmony, while guiding the viewer’s eyes without overwhelming them. Walking through the exhibition, it was obvious that the posters and designs reinforced how this harmony, rooted in liubai 留白, distinguishes Mucha’s work across mediums. Furthermore, both his painterly and decorative works were grounded in realistic sketches and live models, revealing a traditional approach beneath his stylized designs.
There’s also a personal layer in my appreciation of Mucha’s art. My own maternal grandparents were both decorative artists active in China during the 1930s and 40s. Though I never met them, seeing their surviving works instilled in me an early fascination with design and pattern. One of my grandmother’s paintings (“Peony, King of Flowers”), features twelve female figures representing the flowers of each month, with peonies at the center, echoing Mucha’s fusion of women and blossoms into a harmonious union of humanity and nature. (See more about my grandma’s art and life at Xuying Art Gallery)
The Beijing exhibition also included Mucha’s Documents Décoratifs (1902) and Figures Décoratives, which illuminate his design process. Starting with naturalistic drawings, he stylized the forms into patterns, further abstracted the pattens to space-filling shapes, and finally applied it to various objects. My grandmother’s sketches, found in her archived drafts, follow a similar path.
Mucha, poppy drawingMucha, poppy patternMucha, poppy patternLi Xuying, Butterfly: painting, pattern Li Xuying: Table cloth design with butterfly pattern
The overlapping principles and methods Mucha and my grandparents used in creating artworks make me think that the divide between fine art, decorative art, and even commercial art is so arbitrary – barriers the entire Art Nouveau movement sought to break. Whether painting or designing, for a product or for a gallery, there’s no shortcut to achieving an effective artwork. As long as the artist stays true to his craft and vision, there’s no high or low in the process.
Mucha’s Destiny: Art for the People
Born in 1860 in Ivančice, Moravia, Alphonse Mucha rose from modest beginnings to become the king of Art Nouveau, yet his ambitions reached beyond artistic movements. Trained in Munich and Paris, his career soared with the 1894 Gismonda poster for Sarah Bernhardt, launching the “Style Mucha”—sinuous lines, floral motifs, and idealized women. But Mucha saw his talent as a divine gift, carrying a responsibility to serve a higher purpose. He declared, “I wish to be an artist who paints for the people, rather than one who pursues art merely for art’s sake.” With this conviction, Mucha created posters not just for products but as art for all, choosing the format to democratize beauty. Works like The Seasons (1896) or The Arts (1898), with no commercial tie, were affordable and visible on Paris streets, meant to uplift the masses. Yet, his vision faced irony. The models for his elegant figures were often poor women, whose reality was far removed from the flowing bouquets, lace, and ornate garments of his art. His idealized style became a fashion for wealthy salons, an escapism that defined Art Nouveau’s allure. Mucha lamented this disconnect: “I saw my works decorating the salons of high society… My time, my most precious time, consumed on these, while my homeland was like a stagnant pool drying up. In my soul, I knew I was sinfully squandering what belonged to my people.”
The Last Days of Jan Amos Komenský in Naarden, oil on canvas, 8.1 x 6.1 m, 1912
This frustration drove him to create The Slav Epic (1912–1926), a series of 20 monumental canvases celebrating Slavic history and identity. Donated to Prague in 1928, it responded to the formation of Czechoslovakia, reflecting Mucha’s Czech pride and vision of Slavic unity. The Beijing exhibition’s final section featured a digital, animated version of the Epic on a large screen, a choice I found misguided. In The Last Days of Jan Amos Komenský in Naarden, the original’s somber stillness conveys profound hope, but animating the grass or figures dilutes its emotional weight. Perhaps I am old-fashioned, but I believe each art form has its own language, and I am never a fan of the popular trend of “immersion” experience where famous paintings are translated into 3D projection. On the other hand, I can sympathize with the show organizers’ intention in doing so – likely an attempt to draw a larger, younger crowd with modern technology. Given his own efforts to democratize art through accessible posters, one could argue that Mucha might very well embrace all the novel methods to spread beauty!
Mucha’s Legacy: Beauty, Unity, and Revival
Mucha believed truth, love, and beauty formed the foundation of the human spirit. Art Nouveau, with its organic forms and curves, rose against the academic rigidity and the drabness of industrialization. Mucha’s flowing lines and harmonious designs offered an antidote, a vision of creation rathe than destruction. Yet, by the 1930s, as modernism embraced abstraction, his style fell out of favor, seen as outdated. After his death in 1939, his work was neglected, with The Slav Epic stored away until the 1960s.
Naoko TakeuchiCLAMP
The 1960s counterculture revived Mucha’s aesthetic, his sinuous lines inspiring psychedelic rock posters and album covers. His influence extended to Japanese manga, particularly among the “Year 24 Group” of female artists in the 1970s, who pioneered shōjo manga. Works like Naoko Takeuchi’s Sailor Moon and CLAMP’s Cardcaptor Sakura echo Mucha’s floral backgrounds, geometric halos, and vine-wrapped compositions. Mucha’s influence on popular art laid the groundwork for his global resurgence, evident in recent exhibitions worldwide. This is also not the first time Mucha has been exhibited in Beijing. In fact, Mucha is so loved by the Chinese that there’s a museum dedicated to him in central China. I believe Mucha’s resurgence reflects more than stylistic appeal. Much of postmodern aesthetics prioritize incomprehensibility or deconstruction, while rejecting traditional beauty. Mucha’s art, rooted in continuous creation and human connection, offers a counterpoint. He wrote, “We must hold on to the hope that humanity can unite as one, and the more we understand each other, the closer this hope will become a reality.” His revival signals a yearning for love, beauty, and unity in a fragmented world.
Two things have become a common practice for me. One: after a break from art making, I get back into the practice with some quick portrait sketches. Two: when I’m stumped for ideas, I turn the brush on myself and paint a self-portrait. Back in January, after a string of trips, I followed this pattern. I painted a series of head sketches. One of them was me – live model with a fresh hair cut, why not?
Each time I painted myself, the likeness never feels right, and limited by the using of a mirror, the expression and posture often come out stiff and uninspired. So, did this sketch have the potential to be developed into a real painting? What could I do to make it better and more engaging?
In a more serious attempt, I envisioned a flatter and more stylized approach. I picked warm tones close to my skin color for the background – partly for harmony, partly to pop against my blue hoodie. I used abstract shapes to balance the realistic face. To lean into the flat design, I outlined everything with a Sharpie first, and then filled in the colors, letting some of the black lines show through. The collage-like result is a step up from the sketch. I wanted the face to stay more stylized and almost blend into the fragmented background, but the more I worked on it the more it slid back into a standard realistic portrait. Eventually, I just stopped.
Me, oil on board, 11 x 14 in, Feb. 2025
That got me thinking: Is aesthetic the only thing I could work on? What else could I do to make the painting a bit more meaningful? I recalled a self-portrait I did years ago in a class. The teacher told us to paint ourselves in a different role. I went with a witch – surrounded by classic witchy themes with my own spin: a frog brewing potions and a black cat reading the Malleus Maleficarum (often considered the first major anti-witchcraft document). While the painting was crude in execution, but dreaming it up and piecing it together was a blast.
Me, acrylic on board, 30 x 24i in, April 2020
So why not give it some character? Pick a costume I’d never wear in real life (I’m a muted-hoodie kind of person), or visualize some thoughts I usually keep under wraps? I went for a bolder color and more dynamic palette. I still wanted the face to feel like part of the design, but this time, I let it be drowned by the unsettling shapes, vibrant colors and swirling energy. I kept the ideas of black outlines but used the paint instead of Sharpie this time, allowing more varied and expressive marks. That hint of punk—is it just wild imagination, or a quiet piece of me sneaking out?
Me, oil on canvas board, 12 x 16 in, March 2025
In retrospect, neither of my paintings addressed the likeness or posture issues that bothered me in the first place. In the process of further creation, they became irrelevant. Painting’s at its best when it’s a journey—when it’s messy, exploratory, and forces you to reckon with yourself.
Most of the time when I paint, I listen to audiobooks and podcasts on a variety of topics—philosophy, technology, economics, even geopolitics—the majority of which aren’t art-related. I find music distracting, as if the two art forms are vying for my attention. The eclectic mix of subjects I explore keeps me engaged, and even when I don’t fully grasp the discussion, the thrill of learning something new oddly fuels my creativity and deepens my focus on painting.
That said, I do follow a handful of art podcasts from time to time. My initiation to this experience was The Draftsmen Podcast, hosted by artists and instructors Stan Prokopenko and Marshall Vandruff. They dive into the craft of drawing, painting, and image-making, offering practical advice for aspiring artists—especially those skipping art school—on finding resources, building a self-learning system, and promoting their work. The podcast ran for three seasons before pausing due to the hosts’ busy schedules, but all episodes are still available on YouTube. Even if you don’t listen to the old talks, check out their channel for the episode covers—hilarious parodies of famous paintings featuring the duo. It’s a clever, arty touch.
The Week in Art from The Art Newspaperis my go-to for global art news. It delivers insider insights into exhibitions, museums, and auctions. Sometimes it also covering major copyright lawsuits and policy changes that ripple through the art world—content I’d otherwise overlook. It’s the one podcast I can truly “listen” to without needing visuals.
My favorite and the most relevant is The Undraped Artist, hosted by Jeff Hein, a master realist painter himself. His guests are some of the world’s most accomplished traditional artists—like Jeffrey T. Larson,Michael Klein, Scott Christensen, Alex Venezia, and Mario A. Robinson. Interviews typically begin with the artist’s early days in art, trace their career paths, and explore insights on painting techniques and professional growth. Jeff often examines the guest’s work on air, offering comments and asking questions. For this reason, watching on YouTube—especially during these segments—is ideal, though the audio alone is still rich with inspiration.
A fresh addition to my list is Idiosyncratic Nightmare, where hosts Michael Klein and Stephen Bauman—both highly accomplished realist artists—interview a guest while creating their portrait. In the first two episodes, Bauman sketches with graphite, and Klein paints in oil. It’s like watching two master demos unfold simultaneously, paired with a thoughtful conversation. The candid interview with Tania Rivilis taps into the struggles almost all artists experienced. It is a comfort and encouragement at the same time. This one’s a must-watch on YouTube, and do stay till the end of each episode where the duo speed painting their portrait to a more finished stage. I’m rooting for this podcast to take off.
Finally, there’s Talk Art, recommended by my pal Grok3. Hosted by actor Russell Tovey and gallerist Robert Diament, it’s possibly the longest-running art podcast around, now in its 24th season. I haven’t tuned in yet, but I’m excited to explore its extensive interviews with artists of various caliber—also not just realists, but a broader mix of voices from the art scene. With so many back episodes, it’s a goldmine for anyone needing something to listen to while painting.
Share your favorite and happy listening—and watching!
Between trips and holidays, I only managed a few small paintings, and here they are:
Turtle, oil on canvas, 12 x 16 in, Fall 2024Bottle and Cups, oil on canvas board, 11 x 14, Fall 2024Tea Time, oil on canvas board, 9 x 12, November 2024Peaches, oil on paper, 9 x 12, Fall 2024
The turtle one shows my natural noisiness. I have doubts about the subjects all the way: I believe the arrangement works compositionally, but is it too manipulated? I also know I was sloppy with the flowers. Overall, however, there’s a delightful tone from the piece that makes me like it. I guess that’s my Happy Holidays!
With the bottle and the teapot ones, I was really going for a sense of tranquility and harmony. I hope I am at least close. The peaches one is about texture. I wanted to capture that fuzzy and velvety glow of both the fruit and the plastic bag. Did I?
I have given up on washing my brushes with soap for a couple of years. Each time after painting, I clean my brushes with Gamsol, wipe them dry with a paper towel, dip them in a mixture of safflower oil and clover oil (98:2), and lie them flat in a tray with a cover. The recipe is from Draw Mix Paint. Ever since I adopted this method, I haven’t destroyed any brush yet. Since my last trip was a long one, before I left, I covered my brushes with the mixture, put them in a sealed palette box, and store the whole thing in the refrigerator. Two and a half months later, they are fresh and ready to go. Yay!
[Note: The title is a quote from Spanish sculptor Francisco Baron’s preface to Car Li’s 1992 solo show in Spain.]
During my recent trip to China, I visited many exhibitions, and the works of one artist appeared in multiple shows, leaving a strong impression on me. He is Cao Li 曹力 (1954-), a professor of the Mural Department at the Central Academy of Fine Arts 中央美术学院. Cao Li has received traditional art training but does not carry the baggage of the academic style; in his work, he is unrestricted, and his imagination and artistic inspiration traverse ancient and modern, East and West. His themes range from reality to dreams, and his media include line drawing, watercolor, oil painting, wood carving, stone relief, etc.. His ability to move freely across different media reminds me of James Jean, though in terms of artistic expression, Cao Li is more mature and unrestrained. His works exhibit the absurdity of Dali, the seclusion of Klee, the alienating humor of Klimt, the multidimensional thinking of Picasso, the simplicity and innocence of Matisse, and the romantic imagination of Chagall. They also draw inspiration from traditional Chinese paintings, especially the murals of Dunhuang 敦煌, Yongle 永乐 Palace, and certain cave sculptures.
Cao Li, Hmong Girls, mixed media on cardboard, 25 x 25 cm, 2023Cao Li, oil on canvas, 2023Cao Li, Stroll, watercolor on paper, 25 x 38cm, 1981Cao Li, A Glimpse of the Small Town, oil on canvas, 90 x 90 cm, 1989Cao Li, Sketch No. 3, mixed media on paper, 22 x 17 cm, 1998
In the artist’s own words, “Art knows no boundaries; it is the product of the soul, an expression of true feelings, the natural flow of life, a free flight. Nature itself is not art; only what flows through the filter of an artist’s soul can be called ‘art.’ It’s like the process of making wine: grains and grapes themselves do not intoxicate, but after brewing, impurities are removed, leaving the essence that can captivate and enchant people.”
Cao Li, Violinist with Wings, mixed media, 40 x 40cm, 2014Cao Li, oil on canvas, 2023Cao Li, String Ensemble, oil on canvas, 120 x 100cm, 2023
Cao Li enjoys music, a recurring theme in his paintings. His lines, compositions, and colors move like melodies, possessing a lively rhythm. Influenced by his line drawings, his oil paintings almost always start with a planar structure of lines as the initial outline and main framework. He then enriches, thickens, and adds depth to the work through the organic organization of colors. He says, “I control the blocks of color, dots of color, color areas, and lines in the same way a composer arranges notes, tones, rhythms, and tempo. Once these ‘force points’ are placed in the right spots and combined in myriad ways, the disrupted calm space is reordered.”
Cao Li, Under the Papaya Tree Sketch, ink on paper, 25 x 21cm, 1989Cao Li, Under the Papaya Tree, oil on canvas, 80 x 90 cm, 1990Cao Li, The Circus, ink on paper, 44.5 x 32 cm, 2003Cao Li, Three Approaches, ink on paper, 54 x 32cm, 2003
One aspect that interests me when viewing works by Chinese artists is their effort to blend traditional Chinese art with Western painting. The design of figures and the use of color in Cao Li’s works have a distinctly national character. His ink paintings even introduce modernist traditions. His teacher, the renowned artist Yuan Yunsheng 袁运生 (1937-), has taken this fusion even further by applying Abstract Expressionism to ink painting. In the 798 Art District in Beijing, I was fortunate enough to see an exhibition of his works.
Yuan Yunsheng, Song of Mind No. 2, oil on canvas, 102 x 100 cm, 1980Yuan Yunsheng, Pervade, ink on paper, 179 x 285 cm, 1990Yuan Yunsheng, Christina II, ink on paper, 105 x 101 cm, 1991Yuan Yunsheng, Spring Outing, oil on canvas, 240 x 560 cm, 2018
While visiting the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute 四川美术学院, I had the chance to view the “Chinese Painting MFA Invitational Exhibition 2000-2020.” These young artists originally studied Chinese painting, but now their works clearly show influences from oil painting, printmaking, and other art forms. Their use of media has also moved far beyond traditional paper and ink. They draw inspiration from the collision of diverse cultures, creating works that are more personal and profound. Unfortunately most of the artworks on display have glass cover, and makes it very difficult to photograph. I only captured a tiny portion of the treasures on display.
Wang Mayan, Experiment in the Cloud, colors on silk, 53 x 29 cm, 2023Ma Yuanyuan, Silk Road Fantasies, heavy color on paper, 240 x 235 cm, 2023Wei Jiujie, No Man’s Land, colors on silk, 37 x 50 cm each, 2019Ma Yuanyuan, Colorful World No. 2, mixed media, 200 x 200 cm, 2019Zha Lijun, 2018-2020, ink on paper, 388 x 182 cm, 2021
Here are some paintings from one of my favorite artists from the show:
Qi Zhiyue, A Seat at the Table, heavy colors on paper, 68 x 136cm, 2021Qi Zhiyue, A ‘Ye’ for Life, heavy colors on paper, 115 x 95cm, 2019Qi Zhiyue, Ka Ka Ka, heavy colors on paper, 110 x 110cm, 2020Qi Zhiyue, Topic, heavy colors on paper, 68 x 136cm, 2020
Amid all the talking about the “lying flat” culture in China, it is quite exciting to see the art scene there is lively and flourishing.
P.S. Unlike in America, most of the Chinese artists don’t maintain personal websites. Artron 雅昌 is platform where many artists post their works, but the level of accuracy and maintenance vary. You can find more works from Cao Li here: 作品
Nothing spooky here, just an old pumpkin! I can’t recall when I did this, maybe 10 years ago, when I could still feel the “water” in watercolor. Time flies!
Pumpkin, watercolor on paper, 9 x 12, 2015
In the past, when I travelled, even with those lengthy stays abroad, I didn’t do any art. These past months when I stayed in China, inspired by all the art shows I attended (I will talk about these more in the future), I thought I should have kept things going. Oil being too troublesome, I managed to find watercolor paper and paint. My intention was to do some quick sketches or simple paintings, and these are what I’ve done:
Tea-set, watercolor on paper, 9 x 12, Sept. 2024Fruit plate, watercolor on paper, 9 x 12, Oct. 2024
I found myself using watercolor the same way I use oil paint – controlled and layered. Despite their tight look, I didn’t spend that much time on each of these pieces, mainly because I gave up. I could have fine-tuned a lot more details, further emphasized the shadows and highlights, etc., but that was not what I set out to do. I missed the singing and dancing of colors in water.
In a way, the old pumpkin painting was not finished either, and the values probably don’t make sense. However, it was fun, and in my mind, it was what watercolor is supposed to be.
I am not upset though. I haven’t practiced watercolor for a while so a bit lack of touch is fair game. I like my compositions and color choices, and that’s something. Most importantly, I didn’t let the trip completely cut off my art practice, and that’s quite a step forward!
ZHI SU 