Crisp and Somber "Drifting"

Drifting is a self-portrait that captures myself sitting on the bow of a small rowboat, which gently rocked in a bay, with a small vegetated island lurking in the back. The tip of the bow, the outstretched or bent angular legs and arms, and above all, and the figure sitting on top of the boat, jointly or separately formed several intricately nested and well-balanced triangles. Yet, the usual stability associated with such triangular composition was negated somewhat by the tilting boat; one could feel the swaying of the small boat, and the longer one stares at this painting, the more likely one feels the onset of seasickness. My younger self, eyes cast down, lost in thoughts, doubtful and a bit rueful, manifested the angst of youth, of an era, of a nation. The frostiness of this painting, awash with crisp light and dominated by a distancing pale blue shade, was punctuated only by the wine-red swimming trunk, which provided a small gesture of warmth in the otherwise thorough coolness. 

Drifting
30” x 40”
Oil on Canvas
Completed in 2001 

 

Originally posted on matthewfelixsun.com 
 

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Featured Painting – Anselm Kiefer’s Bathtubs

When artists strive to make things new, we can not and should not completely remove ourselves from the past or tradition. Often, the sediments of the past lend more meanings and poignancy to our new endeavors, or our new interpretations.

One of the greatest living artists Anselm Kiefer, is such an example who is steeped in tradition, and I was often moved by the historical resonances he brought forth to his monumental paintings, often through motifs connecting the past to the present, or the future. One of his striking paintings can be seen in SFMOMA, Unternehmen Seelöwe (Operation Sea Lion), placed a tin bathtub in a desolate field, containing several battleships. According to a curator, the manufacturer of those domestic bathtubs, was also manufacturer of weapons used in WWII by the Nazi armies. Such deft reference was a master stroke of Kiefer’s.



That painting, particularly its intriguing bathtub, left a strong impression on me, and it compelled me to record my understanding and imagination grew out of Kiefer’s motif, and led to a painting which I simply named as Anselm Kiefer’s Bathtubs, which was populated with several of such bathtubs in various planes and angles, as if floating on an open sea or in the space. Inside the central tub, a lonely-looking naked man hunched over and hugged his knees. The occupied bathtub, though surrounded by its “peers”, who were obviously in disagreement with one another, and rendered its lone occupier quite isolated and vulnerable.

Anselm Kiefer's Bathtubs
22” x 28”
Oil on Canvas
Completed in 2018
Such painting is also my tribute to a leading artist of our time.

Originally posted on matthewfelixsun.com


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A Glimpse of North Korea from Dandong, China

Last May, I took a day trip to Manchurian city Dandong, the large border Chinese city next to North Korea.

I entertained myself during the short train ride from my home city Shenyang, when the scenery got dull, by observing the speed of the train, which had reached 244 km/hr (152 mi/hr).





Dandong was the entry point of the Chinese "Volunteer" Army and military materials pouring into the battlefields of Korean War in 1950s. The bridge connecting Dandong and North Korea was bombed during the war and it remained damaged, as a relic of the war, stood next to a later bridge, which channeled legal or illegal imported and exported goods between China and North Korea. The image of destruction had made a strong impression on me, and I even made a painting of those parallel bridges, titled "Bombed Bridge, III".


Bombed Bridge, Oil on Canvas, 24"x36", 2007

It should be noticed that the damage to the old bridge was limited to the North Korea's side only, while the rest remained intact inside Chinese territory. At the right vantage point, one could see both bridges stood side by side over Yalu River.







I took a little river cruise along the river, so as to take a quick survey of the border region of North Korea, Sinuiju.















Looking back at Dandong, which though in the economic depressed rust belt Northeast China, comparing to the slow-paced North Korea, looked like a thriving metropolis:









It seemed so arbitrary that one could be born in a "wrong region", or at a "wrong time". Or both. And for the unlucky ones, hope simple didn't exist.


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First Painting Completed in 2013

Last weekend, I completed my first painting in 2013.  It was landscape with a figure - a young man or boy, rowing a canoe in a cold day.  The atmosphere was chilly, dark, but the background houses were somewhat bright and cheerful.  It was an interplay between cold and warmth, between suffocating black and iridescent paler hues.

The atmosphere I strove to achieve for this painting was a certain melancholy, solitude yet not tragic.  The black water actually shimmered and danced.  This a painting with hope, befitting for the beginning of a new year, after a year filled with events of personal sadness.

Rowing
Oil on Canvas
22" x 28"
www.matthewfelixsun.com

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Paper Boat Installations

Continuing my installation effort, I assembled a fleet of paper boats and deployed them on a dry deck.   I used this grouping of the paper boat to explore the relationship of individuals and collective identity, and order and chaos:







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Label: My Installation