Tuesday, March 15, 2022

Arid Urban Life – “Crossing”

Crossing is a somber urban snapshot, featuring a not yet crowded thoroughfare, dominated by a row of pillars planting on a grassy tram lane in the middle of the street, between two vanishing tram tracks. From these mighty pillars, which extended from top to the bottom of the canvas, protruded a complex web of beams and wires crisscrossing the entire upper half of the canvas, as if wanting to imprison the indistinct highrises and the surrounding early morning gray sky in the backdrop. 

In the foreground, a slouching pedestrian, isolated from everything and everyone, setting about to traverse one of the tracks. His detached form and uncertain posture enhanced the somnambulist atmosphere of this picture of parched and flinty urban life. 

Crossing, oil on canvas, 20"x24", 2020
Crossing

oil on canvas
20" x 24"
2020 


Originally posted on matthewfelixsun.com  


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Friday, March 11, 2022

Unsettling "Subterrane”

When I made figurative paintings, I was often drawn to unusual and striking settings, manifested in my 2020 oil painting Subterrane. This urban painting featured a young man in red and blue, standing in the foreground of a dark underpass, whose massiveness dwarfed and weighted down the slight person who peered at the viewers quizzically and uncertainly. Through the far end of the structure, bright light penetrated into the gloomy underpass and shone the ceiling, the floor, and the tilting walls in bold gestures. In complementary colors, some trees and block buildings they protected could be gleaned at the opening of the structure, counterbalancing and stabilizing the hesitant figure, whose hunched posture suggested something unsettling within.

Subterrane, oil on canvas, 20"x24", 2020
Subterrane
oil on canvas
20"x24"
2020

 

Originally posted on matthewfelixsun.com  



Other Related posts on Art · 文化 · Kunst:
Domain ⁠— Familiarity, Sameness, and Subtle Variations
- A Glimpse of Relief ⁠—”Narrow Confinement”
- Uncertain "Prospect" - an oil painting
- Touching Landscape Painting - "Still Water"
- Enigmatic “Seclusion”
- Oil Painting “College Town”
- Allegorical "Surveying"
- Crisp and Somber "Drifting"