art
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Abstraction
I don’t have many paintings that are purely abstract, which in my mind means no attempt have any narrative image. I consider this painting a cityscape because of some of the straight lines embedded in it that suggest manmade structures. Abstract expressionism seems to be an undying genre for people creating art. Dramatic interplay of…
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Am I too cynical to create beauty?
I have been translating and illustrating classical Chinese poetry for kicks. I strive for English translations that are good modern poems, in the hope that poems written many millenia ago in a foreign language can have some relevance to a modern reader in English. This illustration started with a quick drawing I did of a…
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Laws of Color, Physics and Painting
My effort combine to words with images in my paintings have led me to think about the properties and rules of color. I learned that one of Newton less celebrated scientific breakthroughs was that he helped define color theory. This painting includes this poem: somewhere under a rainbow the artist works reflecting on refracted light…
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Man Walking Into Red, Gold, Black and Blue
Without the figure what would this painting be? An abstract painting where people would bring their own sense of scale….landscape or postage stamp? It doesn’t have many brush strokes the colors were added and allowed to act accord to the laws of material science and physics. Adding a figure, for better or worse, encourages the…
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Chinese Poetry and Philosophy Illustration and Translation
I have maintained a regular practice of translating Chinese poetry, Taoist philosophy, and Buddhist tidbits into English. One of the great pleasures of studying Chinese is the poetry. Due to the visually beautiful calligraphic aesthetic of written characters and multi-layered meanings in each character, Chinese poetry functions at a sublime level. When I translate poems,…
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Tiny Huge Landscapes
One type of painting that I have been creating with more frequency are landscapes and cityscapes that are fairly abstract but usually grounded by a tiny figure, tree, building, pole or some combination of these. There is something about creating a landscape on a small scale, (sometimes just several centimeters wide and long), that is…
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Painted Words
One of the unique and elevating features of traditional Chinese art is how it integrates writing and painting. Chinese calligraphy on its own is often considered the highest form of traditional Chinese art. At its best it balances discipline and freedom and is a highly abstract form of visual art that predates western abstract painting…
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Shanghai Nude Model Sketch-group
The model sketching group I attend most Saturdays is a favorite part of my week. Participants range widely in age, gender, and experience. For the last session we had a foreign model, a recently graduated student from New Hamshire, who had great poses. For this pose, she held a book by a Czech writer straight…
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Notebooks
My artwork and poems usually begin in my notebooks. I started in middle school with illustrated dream diaries and have continued to this day. After college when I lived in New York City, I used notebooks to sketch people on the subway and in public spaces. I still do that today in Shanghai. Most of…
