Artist’s Statement

My interest, as a traditional Chinese calligrapher and painter, is to create art, which reflects the changing times while maintaining the conventional tools and influenced of my culture.  The exploration of tensions among perceived norms, cultural expectations, language forms, word and image, and the traditions of fine art and calligraphy have guided me to discover the origin of my creation for art.

My painting style is related to my drawing methods; for this reason, I used the media of pastel to achieve clear and realistic images.  By using pastel, I feel that I am enjoying painting and drawing at the same time.  Besides working from life, I have experimented extensively with photography and digital media as an aid to painting.  Photography helped me to capture the fact, emotion, and movement of the persons I drew.

I expressed the sentimental human sense with a powerful visual effect through the huge, detailed faces.  I used the simple background to emphasize the figure and to involve minimal atmosphere.  Through my paintings, I want to bring a different way of representing portraiture to viewers and make this art form more contemporary.