A quote from Karl Marx “All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned” perfectly capture our sad epoch and this monochromatic painting of a disintegrating city/landscape reflects such pessimistic sentiment.
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!
My 2022 oil painting, Disperse, captures a hallucinatory moment of a nighttime landscape — between the silhouettes of two monumental and interlocking trees, a group of tiny figures scurrying by, running away from their familiar ground, their fates, their tormentors or captors. The specificities are intentionally omitted, so as to leave the viewers to interpret freely and to fill in the missing details, though the title does hint at diaspora stories in the headlines of late.
Disperse, oil on canvas, 20"x30", 2022
This piece will be part of the juried exhibition "Within Sight or From Imagination" at GearBox Gallery, 770 West Grand Ave, Oakland, CA 94612 (August 10 - September 9, 2023). Juror: Jeremy Morgan.
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.
From March 24 through June 26, I will present 14 gouache paintings in a solo exhibition “Rejuvenation — Winter to Spring” at Albany Community Center Foyer Art Gallery.
The onset of the warm and colorful spring, dislodging frosty and somber winter, is a time for the revival and rejuvenation of nature and human spirits, and is an occasion to celebrate.
The 14 pieces presented are gouache on paper, most painted under the shadow of the pandemic, 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.
Albany Community Center Foyer Art Gallery
March 23 - June 26, 2023
Recently, I started to explore painting with black India ink on synthetic, non-absorbent Yupo paper, whose water-resistant nature can be exploited and allow some interesting effects when the ink is washed, sprayed, scrubbed, and removed. I am happy with the results; these new paintings look richly layered, light and shadow contrasted in a complicated and mysterious way, and the flowing ink traces are often unpredictable, playful, and evocative.
"Luminous" is a translucent landscape in the midst of a thorough purification - loaded yet still airy rain clouds release a generous yet gentle downpour, which rushes into the solid ground and continues to overflow in the already soaked terrain. The dark clouds, and darker soil, rendered the space in between even brighter, as if backlit, glowing, and luminous. Above the warm earth, the cool rain and clouds leave a refreshing impression.
Luminous
gouache on paper
9"x12"
2022
Originally posted on matthewfelixsun.com
Other Related posts on Art · 文化 · Kunst:
- Impenetrable "Whirl"
- Abstract "Autumn Rain"
- Ethereal "Immaculate"
- Quietly "Waiting"
- Fuzzy "Memories of Childhood"
- Fantastic "Edge"
- Arid Urban Life – "Crossing"
- Domain — Familiarity, Sameness, and Subtle Variations
"Autumn Rain" is a semi-abstract inspired by a rainy landscape. I endeavored to capture the pleasant wetness enveloping the fields and hills, and the wonderful interplay of cool and warm hues in the rich fall season. Bold and patchy strokes obliterated the contours of easily identifiable objects and rendered the landscape into almost pure patterns and rhythms.
Autumn Rain
9” x 12”
Gouache on paper
Completed in 2021
Originally posted on matthewfelixsun.com
Eethereal "Immaculate" “Immaculate” aptly summarizes its subject of the painting – several ethereal white lilies floating in an opaque water body, whose pattern resembles the other-worldly images transmitted by the great Hubble Space Telescope. These dreamily floating flowers and their irregularly patterned background, mesmerize and pull the viewers into the depth. This painting was published by
Your Impossible Voice as the cover art in their 24th Issue in Spring 2021.
Immaculate
gouache on paper
9"x12"
2020
Originally posted on matthewfelixsun.com
Other Related posts on Art · 文化 · Kunst:
- Quietly "Waiting"
- Fuzzy "Memories of Childhood"
- Fantastic "Edge"
- Arid Urban Life – "Crossing"
- Domain — Familiarity, Sameness, and Subtle Variations
- A Glimpse of Relief —"Narrow Confinement"
- Uncertain "Prospect" - an oil painting
- Touching Landscape Painting - "Still Water"
Edge is a fantastic cityscape, focusing on a sharp- lonely house in a peculiar perspective, with a sharp edge menacingly pointing to the viewers. The strangeness of the structure is further emphasized by its faceless facade, its imperfect windows, and the surrounding plantation in unusual hues and shapes. This geometric cube and its tightly closed windows promise some zealously guarded secrets, and invites and dares the viewers to discover.
Edge
24” x 30”
Oil on Canvas
Completed in 2022
Originally posted on matthewfelixsun.com
Other Related posts on Art · 文化 · Kunst:
- Arid Urban Life – “Crossing”
- 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"
An open, terraced, and desiccated field, dominated by a truss tower of industrial scale, dwarfed by the vault of leaden clouds, served as the backdrop of a small-scaled human drama, which centered on a lone figure looking toward the city silhouette in the distance, as if contemplating his or her future, in the region unknown. All these formed the subject of my landscape painting, Prospect, which suggested some inner turmoil without resorting to gestural embellishments - understated but impactful. I am pleased with the contrast between the vast landscape and the insignificant figure who got lost amid the cold and uninviting surroundings.
Originally posted on matthewfelixsun.com
Other Related posts on Art · 文化 · Kunst:
- Touching Landscape Painting - "Still Water"
- Enigmatic “Seclusion”
- Oil Painting “College Town”
- Allegorical "Surveying"
- Crisp and Somber "Drifting"
- Disquieting Code - Oil Painting "Postscript"
- Featured Oil Painting - Crisp
- Featured Painting "Waifs"
Several years ago, while traveling to Seattle, I encountered an unusual man-made lake, whose smooth surface was dotted with numerous bleached tree stumps, scattering across large swatches of the water surface. These turned out not to be tree stumps, rather relics or ruins of former workers’ dormitory sheds, which were abandoned and flooded with the change of the industries. The moving and melancholic image of the disappeared past haunted me ever since, and later the stumps-dotted lake and the ghost town underneath became the subject of my landscape oil painting Still Water, aiming to capture the poignancy of the sight.
Still Water
Oil on Canvas
30” x 40”
Completed in 2020
Originally posted on matthewfelixsun.com
Other Related posts on Art · 文化 · Kunst:
- Enigmatic “Seclusion”
- Oil Painting “College Town”
- Allegorical "Surveying"
- Crisp and Somber "Drifting"
- Disquieting Code - Oil Painting "Postscript"
- Featured Oil Painting - Crisp
- Featured Painting "Waifs"
- Featured Painting - Itinerant
- Featured Painting "Boyhood"
Though lately I am mostly attracted to shifting patterns, colors, tones, and shapes, from time to time, I am still inspired by pure scenery, particularly when I can discern such variations, and especially if the landscape evokes strong emotions such as moody melancholy. Such an image I had encountered in Manchurian China, barely a few months before the pandemic started to ravage the globe, intrigued and challenged me to create an oil painting when sheltered at home, Crisp, an understated work aptly captured a sense of community, isolation, and resilience.
Crisp
22” x 28”
Oil on Canvas
Completed in 2020
This painting is being exhibited in Biafarin Online Exhibition (March 10 – April 10, 2021): Exhibizone – Winter 2021 Catalog.
Originally posted on matthewfelixsun.com
Other Related posts on Art · 文化 · Kunst:
- Featured Painting "Waifs"
- Featured Painting - Itinerant
- Featured Painting "Boyhood"
- Featured Painting, Hordes
- Featured Painting - Silent Party
- My Featured Painting - Diptych "19"
- Featured Painting – Emergence
Waifs depicted an almost surreal landscape, tranquil and dark, as if under the spell of a mysterious and shushing moonlight. Amongst tall trunks, a group of figures shrouded in white, ostensibly young women, trod, plodded, or frolicked on the richly vegetated ground, ever deeper into the woods.
Despite their being in a group, there was an overwhelming sense of isolation and loneliness, and their internalized presence was touching to behold. Their billowing dresses were as mysterious as these figures themselves - were these innocent young girls or runaway women? Were they spirits, witches, or visiting phantoms from beyond the reach, and acted in tandem?
Waifs
24” x 30”
Oil on Canvas
Completed in 2020
This painting is being exhibited in Biafarin Online Exhibition: Exhibizone – Winter 2021 (March 10 – April 10, 2021)
Originally posted on matthewfelixsun.com
Other Related posts on Art · 文化 · Kunst:
- Featured Painting - Itinerant
- Featured Painting "Boyhood"
- Featured Painting, Hordes
- Featured Painting - Silent Party
- My Featured Painting - Diptych "19"
- Featured Painting – Emergence
- Featured Painting, Whirring
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