Joshua Meyer

Parenthesis

2015

Victor Wang's highly textured paintings involve thick layers of paint over collaged images from the Tang Dynasty. In "Let Her Go", the foreground shows a modern female figure sitting upon the side of a boat which gives the impression she is wearing wings and about to take flight. Upon closer look, there are various scenes taking place around her in the water - warriors with knives drawn, a jeep in pursuit of some unseen enemy, a cauldron boiling over. Influence by the Renaissance Masters, Titian and Rembrandt for their glazing and layering techniques respectively, the artist builds the surface using heavy paint, swirling and mixing the color on the canvas. The end result is a poetic and emotionally powerful representation of the human form. Victor Wang Let Her Go oil on canvas 48h x 60w in 121.92h x 152.40w cm VWG011 My path through life has been adventurous, exciting, and dream-like. My experience of settling into America in search of better opportunities has been both challenging and inspiring. I use the human face as a vehicle to paint human experiences - worry and wonder, sadness and pleasure - which reflect the emotional stage directly tied to my immigration experiences. I grew up amongst the sunflower fields in northern China. In my childhood years, I played under the bright, yellow sunflowers with my brothers everyday. China’s Cultural Revolution played an important part in my life. During that time, sunflowers were used as political allegories to depict how citizens of China should follow Mao who represented the sun, since sunflowers follow the sun’s movements. People eventually inferred the deception that this symbol masked. After graduating from high school, I was sent to a labor camp in the country for ‘reeducation’ during China’s Cultural Revolution. There, I was subject to grueling farm work. Often, I worked in corn and sunflower fields from sunrise to sunset. Thus, for me, sunflowers evoke both personal joy and sadness. Therefore, to deliver my complex feelings, I use sunflowers as a metaphor to connote my background and emotional stage. My incorporation of collages of figures from China’s Tang Dynasty represents my Chinese heritage and is a constant reminder of where I came from. The texture and earthiness on the canvas’s surface are inspired by the texture of the soil on the farm where I worked in China. Although I often gain great pleasure from the process of painting, it is most important to unfold expressively those feelings within myself. Wang belongs to a generation of immigrant painters from China, whose artistic background was defined by socialist realism but took advantage of their skills and broke away from that tradition to create new subjects in the U.S. “When I was a student during Cultural Revolution, Soviet realism art was among the dominant source of influence and it grabbed us like lightening...

In what appears to be a moment of defeat, the subject sits glassy-eyed in the corner of a boxing ring. A momentary respite, perhaps, before he begins the voluntary abuse to his body...

"My recent work now becomes more involved with cloud cover and its effect on light and colour through both its translucent and opaque properties. Clouds are visible masses of water droplets or frozen ice crystals suspended in the atmosphere. They have the ability to refract and reflect, creating an ever changing perception of light which inspires my use of colour. I am constantly referring to the paradox of a cloud’s perceived weight and its fragility and the relationship between the cool and warm colours created by it. I have become increasingly interested in catching the moment when heavy overcast clears to reveal clear blue sky, a cool colour that complements the warmth it brings. While the most obvious manifestation of light refraction at this time would occur in the form of a rainbow, I will be concerned with accentuating the infinite, more subtle effects. I find myself inspired increasingly by the works of Turner, who created ephemeral atmospheric effects using large washes of liquid paint. Other influences include Henry Matisse, Francis Cadell...

Oil and gold leaf on canvas For centuries, artisans and artists have turned to gold leaf as a way to make their creations shimmer and shine. Also many contemporary artists continue ...

Moreno PINCAS depicts life. Noisy, agitated. With a critical and tender eye, he sketches existence as if it were a play and each time tells us a new story made up of meetings and liv...

"My recent work now becomes more involved with cloud cover and its effect on light and colour through both its translucent and opaque properties. Clouds are visible masses of water droplets or frozen ice crystals suspended in the atmosphere. They have the ability to refract and reflect, creating an ever changing perception of light which inspires my use of colour. I am constantly referring to the paradox of a cloud’s perceived weight and its fragility and the relationship between the cool and warm colours created by it. I have become increasingly interested in catching the moment when heavy overcast clears to reveal clear blue sky, a cool colour that complements the warmth it brings. While the most obvious manifestation of light refraction at this time would occur in the form of a rainbow, I will be concerned with accentuating the infinite, more subtle effects. I find myself inspired increasingly by the works of Turner, who created ephemeral atmospheric effects using large washes of liquid paint. Other influences include Henry Matisse, Francis Cadell...