Featured Painting "Boyhood"

Depicting human beings is both challenging and exciting, because of the complexity of the human emotions, and the viewers’ familiarity with expressions and postures associated with these emotions, which suffers no falsehood. 

My recent Boyhood attempted to capture the instance when a confident and cocky urchin, insistently pressed himself upon the viewers, announcing his presence. Though a little naughty, he still possessed his innocence, and his wonderment at the broader world surrounding him was palpably touching, and hopefully would viewers of their tender ages. 

The background was sparse, and open, allowing much space for the boy to occupy, except for a pair of moving legs towards the center space and seemingly poised to displace the boy. Perhaps, it was the man he was to become. The confluence of presence and future was both touching and a bit unnerving. 

 

Boyhood
28”x22”
Oil on Canvas
Completed in 2020 

 

Originally posted on matthewfelixsun.com 

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- Featured Painting, Hordes
- Featured Painting - Silent Party
- My Featured Painting - Diptych "19"
- Featured Painting – Emergence
- Featured Painting, Whirring
- Featured Painting - Quarry
- Featured Painting – Desolate Souls of Main Street
- Featured Painting - Dream Forest

Featured Painting - Waft

My 2015 painting Waft features, against an empty and nondescript landscape, a very small girl in the lower right corner of the vertical canvas, running away from the viewers, while holding strings tied to floating human balloons, all in the shape of young women dressed in pure white, in postures of awakening or drowning. Was it a hopeful dream, or a potentially nightmare? It is up to the viewers to decide. Perhaps, what I captured was the the hope and trepidation of a very young person at that cusp of growing into herself, while facing a future unknown.


Waft
Oil on Canvas
30" x 24"
Completed in 2015

This painting was chosen as cover art and as a featured piece on page 19 by Pomona Valley Review (Volume 11), published by California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, in July 2017.




Originally posted on matthewfelixsun.com

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- Featured Painting - A Young Frenchman
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- Featured Painting - Remembrance
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- Featured Painting “Mirage” – A World of Ambiguity
- Featured Painting – “Forest Within” – When Reality Met Illusion
- Featured Painting: The March of Time

Two Figure Paintings of Mine Published by Wilde Magazine Issue 2

Last weekend, two figure paintings of mine, Pilgrim and Pond were published by Wilde Magazine, in their Spring 2013 Issue (Issue 2).

Quoting the statement from the official website, "Wilde Magazine was founded in 2012 with the goal of offering a queer perspective on life through art and writing. We are a bi-annual publication, available in both print and digital formats.

We seek to not only offer a high-quality publication of art and literature, but to foster a communal and multimedia experience. Art and writing, culture itself, is not a mere showcase of talent, but rather a discussion.

The nature of queer life, as well as an artistic life, is one centered around community. It's essential in our creative abilities and our rise against adversity. This struggle has been documented by gay artists and writers before us, such as the very one after which this magazine is christened - Oscar Wilde."

It is a honor to have my works included in this magazine.  Below are the screenshots of the online previews.  You may browse the magazine in a reduced format online, and the print and digital versions of the magazine can be purchased through MagCloud.






Pilgrim, Oil on Canvas, 24"x36", 2005




Pond, Oil on Canvas, 36"x48", 2001

This is the third publication of my paintings this year, following by Four Paintings of Mine Published by Superstition Review, April 2013 and Pomona Valley Review, Issue 7 Published with My Paintings and Installation.


Related posts on Art · 文化 · Kunst:
- New Wilde Magazine Publications

- Unexpected Successes of "Stringed White Dresses - An Installation"
- Pomona Valley Review, Issue 7 Published with My Paintings and Installation
- Three Magazines to Publish My Works in April
- Four Paintings of Mine Published by Superstition Review, April 2013

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

Other Related posts on Art · 文化 · Kunst:
- New Presentations of My Yearly Artworks
- Unexpected Successes of "Stringed White Dresses - An Installation"
- "White Dress" Series Continues - A New Drawing and a New Painting
- 2012 Recapitulation - Video Presentation of Paintings Completed in 2012
- Revolutionary Way to Shop for Clothes. What About Frames?
- Before and After - A Painting Framed
- Baby's New Clothes

My "Vegetable Garden"

Last week, I finished one of the ten canvases I have been concurrently working on for a while. This painting depicts a bewildered and somewhat entrapped young man, naked, in a jail cell like vegetable garden, full of heads of cabbages.



Vegetable Garden
Oil on Canvas
30" x 24"
Completed in 2010

© Matthew Felix Sun
www.matthewfelixsun.com

San Francisco Artist Georgianne Fastaia

I had the honor of showing my works with fantastic San Francisco artist Georgianne Fastaia.

Her works - mostly figures and landscape or cityscape - have rich textures and great atmosphere. Her figures often boldly claim large portion of the canvases, giving them a sense of timeless monumentality, yet they are abruptly confronted by the edges of the canvases, making them somewhat vulnerable, therefore the complexity of the figures and the paintings palpable. I also detect sense of desolation from her landscape, not dissimilar to those by Edward Hopper, despite the obvious difference of their techniques and subject matters. This sense is particularly obvious in her works painted after Hurricane Katrina.

Below are a sample of her works I admire greatly:

Mother of Saint 36x36
Originally uploaded by georgianne fastaia

Horizon 30x30
Originally uploaded by georgianne fastaia

Twilight 48x48
Originally uploaded by georgianne fastaia

Bay Freighter 36x36
Originally uploaded by georgianne fastaia

Detailed information about Georgianne Fastaia can be found on her ArtSlant page as well.

My First Completed Work in 2010 - Sheltering

Today, 9 January 2010, I finished an oil painting - Sheltering. This painting started when I had a vision of a person sheltering himself from threats. The person could well be me. I made a few sketches and much trial and debate, settled with the current image and in order to add immediacy and complexity, the barbed wires were added today as the final touche.


Sheltering - Oil on Canvas, 24" x 18"

For my complete output, please visit: www.matthewfelixsun.com

Publications

William and Mary Review at Williamsburg, Virginia has just published my painting Upstream (30"x30", oil on canvas) and Branches (24"x18", oil on canvas) .
















Below are my previous publications in the William and Mary Review.

2008
Room with a Lamp
Oil on canvas
28" x 22"










2007
A Young Frenchman
Oil on canvas
24" x 20"










2006
A Young Frenchman (variation)
Oil on canvas
24" x 20"









2005
Drifting
Oil on canvas
30" x 40"











In 2007, Amistad online magazine at Howard University, Washington DC also published three paintings from my Apocalypse Series.

View online - Chose Art, then Matthew Felix Sun

Or view the PDF archiv <-- need to add this PDF to my own website

Birds and Men
Oil on canvas
30"x48"









Devils' Dance
Oil on canvas
30"x40"












The Triumph of Saint George
Oil on Canvas
48"x30"

Myths in My paintings

I'm consistently interested in mythologies of different cultures. Naturally, I'm most familiar with Chinese culture, but China does not have well-developed mythology. A few well known, though sketchy, stories were passed on to my generation, however, and I was able to created a few works out of these.

After Chinese myth, Greek mythology is most familiar to me, and a few works of mine on themes from Greek mythology would be more familiar to the viewers of my work. Therefore I'll skip the explanations of the first three works.

Greek:

Sisyphus



















Daphne (unfinished)














Minotaur
















I also made a few paintings based on Christian themes:

Adam and Eve














Annunciation















The Triumph of Saint George




















Chinese:

Nüwa Creating Human Beings - as in most pagan culture, the creator of human beings was a female. Nüwa is a goddess who out of boredom, played with clay dough and generated human figurines. By breathing on them, she gave them life.


Nüwa Patching Up the Sky - a terrible war between two powerful gods resulted in the collapse of the pillar holding up the sky. Sky was broken and the rain poured down (deluge) and humans suffered. Nüwa took pity on her creations and fixed the pillar, then melted many five-colored stones to patch the sky. The vapors from the heat amused the people therefore Nüwa allowed them to stay, hence the clouds.


Kuafu Chasing the Sun (unfinished) - Kuafu was a giant who wanted to communicate with the Sun. In order to catch up with the sun, he ran from sunrise to sunset. Just when he was reaching the sun, he was exhausted and fell to ground to die - his giant muscles became mountains and hills while his blood was transformed into the rivers and creeks.








Jingwei Filling Up the Sea - Jingwei was a lovely boy who drowned in the sea. From the place he drowned flew out a small bird, who took on a task worthy of Sisyphus: carrying tiny stones in his beak and dropping them into the sea, in order to fill it up, some day.

Chinese Themed/Influenced Paintings

I'm getting excited at my upcoming trip to China and am looking forward to some new stimuli. Though I studied mostly western drawing and painting techniques, my Chinese background inevitably influences my thinking; therefore the compositions and executions of my paintings demonstrate those influences to various degrees. Sometimes I intentionally tried to imitate Chinese water ink paintings, even though my medium is oil, resulting in some hard to define but intriguing works:

Woodcutter














Epic















Explosion















Snowy Mountain, I



















Snowy Mountain, II



















Swamp















Dirge














Homeland Impression, I

Color vs Monotone

My attention was called to a William Kentridge exhibit at San Francisco Modern Art Museum.

I had never heard of him and since his name was brought into conversation in a discussion of my favorite living artist, Anselm Kiefer, I was intrigued and found this information on SF MOMA website:

"Combining the political with the poetic, William Kentridge's work has made an indelible mark on the contemporary art scene. Dealing with subjects as sobering as apartheid and colonialism, Kentridge often imbues his art with dreamy, lyrical undertones or comedic bits of self-deprecation, making his powerful messages both alluring and ambivalent. Perhaps best known for his stop-motion films of charcoal drawings, the internationally renowned South African artist also works in etching, collage, sculpture, and the performing arts, opera in particular. This exhibition explores five primary themes that have engaged Kentridge over the last three decades through a comprehensive selection of his work from the 1980s to the present. Concentrating on his most recent production and including many pieces that have not been seen in the United States, the exhibition reveals as never before the full arc of his distinguished career."

A few samples of his work online give a sense of doom and foreboding. I'm definitely planning to visit the exhibit, which runs from March 14 through May 31, 2009.

My friend however, had a reservation: "I'm not sure that you'll like his work. The pieces are mostly black and white and your colors are so good."

Really? It is a great compliment. But I never have the confidence to call myself a good colorist. I do like colors, particularly after my "grand tour" of Italy when I fell under the spell of Italian High Renaissance masters. Over the years, however, I have produced several paintings that are muted in color, or in monotone. Often I feel the interplay of the dark and the light give a painting energy that is quite sufficient.

Below are a few samples that fall in that category - I'm rather happy with the results:


Sorrow & Suffering















Shades




















Supremacy















Lone Traveler















Desire



















Companion
















Melancholy



















Mono-Portrait



















Heavenward Ladder



















Moon Sonata















Poplars















Dark Trees















Hovering Clouds