Successful East Bay Open Studios at Makers Workspace Studio

On December 2 and 3, fourteen artists and artisans presented paintings, drawings, ceramics, mosaics, and jewelry at Makers Workspace Studio during the East Bay Open Studios (EBOS). It was a successful communal space. I am particularly pleased that my friend Edith Ng presented her beautiful ceramics to the public for the first time, as our guest artist. Her debut brought tremendous energy and many guests to our studio and all of us benefit from her presence.

During the EBOS event, I was able to sell more than a dozen gouache and ink paintings. Here a some of these works:

Roots, gouache on paper, 14×11, 2023

Hydrangea, gouache on paper, 14×11, 2023 

 
The View, India Ink on Yupo paper, 14×11, 2023

Flickering, gouache on paper, 14×11, 2023

Profusion, gouache on Yupo paper, 14×11, 2023

Ethereal, gouache on Yupo paper, 14×11, 2023

Autumn Song, gouache on paper, 11×14, 2023

Red, gouache on paper, 11×14, 2023

Breaching, gouache on paper, 11×14, 2022

I am so grateful for all the support I received. Thank you!

July Exhibition in City Art Gallery, San Francisco

In July, I will return to the wonderful co-op gallery in San Francisco: City Art Gallery, which “opened its doors at 828 Valencia St. in 1998 and has remained a constant in the radically changing Valencia corridor.” 

Exhibition date: July 5-30
Reception & the City Art’s 25th Anniversary Celebration: July 7, Friday, 7-10 pm Location: 828 Valencia St, San Fransisco (between 19th & 20th)
Gallery Hours: Sun, Wed-Thursday 12-9 pm, Fri/Sat 12-10 pm
My gallery sitting shifts: July 16, Sat, 12-4:30 pm, July 22, Sun, 12-5 pm

Below are the sample of the pieces I will exhibit:

 

 

Opening Reception to "Rejuvenation — Winter to Spring", a solo exhibition in Albany, CA

 

 

Yesterday afternoon, the reception to my solo exhibition "Rejuvenation — Winter to Spring" took place. 

This art exhibition in Albany Community Center Foyer Art Gallery contains 14 gouache paintings I completed in the last three years, recording our collective emergence from frigid winter into a slowly thawing spring. These paintings and abstractions of landscape, juxtaposing dark hues and bright colors, rigid lines, and sensuous washes, echoing contradicting characteristics and features, reflect the shifting of seasons and moods. The show ends on June 26.

 

After several days of severe storms, balmy spring days arrived this weekend, inviting quite a few people to attend the opening reception on a beautiful spring afternoon. I was grateful for the opportunity to share my experiences and my art with these very supportive friends and art lovers.

 

Finally, spring had arrived.

Featured Painting - Weave

My small gouache painting Weave served as a little window to a bigger universe, literally and figuratively, opening to a vast expanse of sky and ocean, which emerged from alternating tall windows and hedges in the foreground. The painting is quite still, as it was dominated by the forlorn and hushed landscape; yet it was also dynamic, with the sky streaked with dark clouds, and blue ocean interrupted by light and dark waves, and the hedges grew wild and almost hallucinative, twisting their relationship to the windows and the outside world into optical confusion. One small relief was the disc of the sun floating atop, providing a counterpoint to the dissonance below, even though its presence, obscured somewhat by wisps of clouds, was rather bleached.


Wave
11” x 14”
Gouache on Paper
Completed in 2019


Originally published on matthewfelixsun.com


Other Related posts on Art · 文化 · Kunst: 
- Featured Painting - Dream Forest
- Featured Painting - Interlocked
- Featured Painting - July Meteors
- Featured Painting: Time Frame
- Featured Painting - Our Winter of Discontent
- Featured Painting -- Congregation
- Featured Drawing "Formation"

Featured Painting - Dream Forest

Dream Forest continued my exploration of monochromatic paintings consisting of interlocking patterns and shades, some simple, some more intricate. This small gouache painting depicted an imaginary forest at night time, when moon light shimmered over truncated trunks and branches, contrasting starkly with dark surrounding. Also, the image somehow resembled a microscopic view of organism, a tiny sliver of macrocosm.

 
Dream Forest
7” x 11”
Gouache on Paper
Completed in 2018


Originally posted on matthewfelixsun.com


Other Related posts on Art · 文化 · Kunst:
- Featured Painting - Interlocked
- Featured Painting - July Meteors
- Featured Painting: Time Frame
- Featured Painting - Our Winter of Discontent
- Featured Painting -- Congregation
- Featured Drawing "Formation"
- Featured Painting "Birches"
- My Featured Painting - "Paris and Three Goddesses" 

Featured Painting: Time Frame

Identifying myself primarily a representational artist, does not exclude me from time to time being drawn to purely abstract visions, which excite with contrasting or even clashing colors, interplay of of shades, lines, and intricacies of patterns and forms. One of my successful results is a recent gouache painting, Time Frame, which intrigues viewers with ever expanding viewfinders, appealingly complementing secondary colors, and an array of ever shifting lines of different lengths, angles, and hues.

 
Time Frame
Gouache on Paper
7” x 11”
Completed in 2018

This painting will be exhibited at Berkeley Expression Gallery, September - December 2018, as part of the “Autumn Colors” group exhibition.

Originally posted on matthewfelixsun.com

Other Related posts on Art · 文化 · Kunst:
- Featured Painting - Our Winter of Discontent
- Featured Painting -- Congregation
- Featured Drawing "Formation"
- Featured Painting "Birches"
- My Featured Painting - "Paris and Three Goddesses"
- My Featured Painting - Colony
- My Featured Painting - New Century's Shangri-La
- My Featured Painting - Procession

My 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.

 

Cascade
Gouache on Paper 12”x8”
Completed in 2017

A simple and heart-warming souvenir.


Originally posted on matthewfelixsun.com

Other Related posts on Art · 文化 · Kunst:
- My Featured Painting "Origin"
- Featured Painting - Remembrance
- My Featured Painting "Apprehend"
- Featured Painting “Mirage” – A World of Ambiguity
- Featured Painting – “Forest Within” – When Reality Met Illusion
- Featured Painting: The March of Time
- My Featured Painting "Minotaur"  

My Featured Painting "Origin"

The first painting I completed in 2017, Origin, was an abstract gouache painting, with yellow dusts scattered on a very dark background — red and blue streaks intermingled with swirling thin layer of black paint. A striking contrast and beautiful presentation, perhaps depicting the beginning, or end of the time.

   
Origin
Gouache on Paper, 10”x8”, Completed in 2017
© Matthew Felix Sun
www.matthewfelixsun.com


The inception of this piece was a strange one. It was inspired by my aged, multiple-layered, and simultaneously muddied and rich-hued palette. A small vision triggered a larger one.

Originally posted on matthewfelixsun.com

Other Related posts on Art · 文化 · Kunst:
- Featured Painting - Remembrance
- My Featured Painting "Apprehend"
- Featured Painting “Mirage” – A World of Ambiguity
- Featured Painting – “Forest Within” – When Reality Met Illusion
- Featured Painting: The March of Time
- My Featured Painting "Minotaur" 

Three Gouache Paintings Completed in the New Year

Into 2017, while working on  five oil paintings simultaneously, I decided to better utilize my time and took on work on paper again.

So far, I have completed three gouache paintings this year and they formed a very interesting complementing body of work to my oil paintings.


Origin, 10"x8", Gouache on Paper, 2017

Origin was an abstract painting, depicting the beginning, or end of the the time, featuring yellow dusts over background of black intermingled with layers of red and blue hues. It boasted a striking contrast and pleasing presentation.



Hope and Desire, 10"x8", Gouache on Paper, 2017

Hope and Desire was a geometric study of shades and shapes, representing hope, desire and the dash of them.



Cascades, 12"x8", Gouache on Paper, 2017

Cascades was inspired by Yosemite waterfalls, in the style of Impressionism. Completed just days ago, in February.


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- Congregation - My New Art Installation
- Niobe - An Installation
- Several More Gouache Paintings
- Gouache Painting Wildflowers
- My First Two Gouache Drawings 

Several More Gouache Paintings

Continuing my exploration with gouache, I recently made these paintings below.


À la russe, III 

À la russe, mini series continued as the crisis between the Russia and Ukraine deepened.  I hope the Russian menace will abate soon.


Male Torso 

I also want to explore making life drawings with gouache and this "Male Torso" above was one of such efforts.


Floating 

Finally, I focused on the coloration in this "Floating", which also examined spatial relationship.


Related posts on Art · 文化 · Kunst:
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- Congregation - My New Art Installation
- Niobe - An Installation
- Several More Gouache Paintings
- Gouache Painting Wildflowers
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Recent Installation and Gouache Paintings

Recently, I make another installation - an origami white dress, trussed up by strings leading to different directions, and nailed to the back of a frame.

It was a found frame, with the original artwork removed, though I kept the battered backing material, which was flaked and a bit tainted in a very interesting way, as an evocative backdrop.  The pose of the dress was simple and serene, yet the splash of red ink all over the dress and on the backdrop, hinted at some dark undertone:


Constraints
Paper, Gouache, and Threads on Paper, with Wooden Frames  
21.25" x 17.25" x 2"

The recent gouache paintings I made in last several weeks include some still life, landscape, figurative and some semi-abstract paintings:


White Rose                                      Iceberg


Dressing                                         Sketch of a young man


Reeds


À la russe, I


À la russe, II

The last two pieces were inspired by Vladimir Putin's Russia.


Related posts on Art · 文化 · Kunst:
- A New Installation/Mixed Media Work Completed
- Congregation - My New Art Installation
- Niobe - An Installation
- Several More Gouache Paintings
- Gouache Painting Wildflowers
- My First Two Gouache Drawings

Several More Gouache Paintings

Continuing my exploration of the versatile media, gouache, I completed these works in last couple weeks:










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