Work
Wu focuses on figurative work, using live models, mainly women draped in cloth, although his repertoire includes landscapes and portraits. The curves of the body and folds in cloth remind Wu of nature, such as mountains, water, and sunrise and sunset. Wu's style is impressionistic and moody. It has evolved from initially painting "quickly and spontaneously" with exaggerated values and colors to growing more logical and conscious, according to Wu. Art of the West magazine described his work as "nothing if not Western in style and theme," despite Wu's training in China. This is also reflected in his choice of models.
Wu is known best for his figurative paintings. Inspired heavily by 19th century French painting, Wu describes his work as “representational, but not traditional classical.” This can be seen, as Wu uses modern elements of graphic design in his work.
Wu's design principles derive from traditional Chinese painting. Wu begins composing a new image by determining what he calls points, masses, and lines. A line refers to any prominent edge, shape, or series of shapes that sweeps through the painting. A point refers to any small shape, and a mass refers is any large shape or cluster of small shapes that can be grouped together to become one large shape. While a painting can be built on two or even just one of these three elements, Wu prefers to build his compositions on a mixture of all three. "I use points, masses, and lines the way a composer uses notes to write a song," Wu explains.
Since 1983, Wu's work has been exhibited in Asia, Europe, and the United States. He has won awards including the Merit Award at the sixth National Art Exhibition, Beijing; the Gustafson Fund Award; the National Oil and Acrylic Painter's Society Award (United States); first place in the ninth Biennial National Figure Painting and Drawing Exhibition; second place in International Artist magazine Challenge No. 4 (Aug/Sept 2001); and the Daler-Rowney Award from the Oil Painters of America.
Wu has released seven books of his work and has been featured in three DVDs. His work has been published in International Artist Magazine (April/May 2003, August/September 2005), Art of the West (September/October 2004, July/August 2007), Art Talk Magazine (February 2005), and American Art Collector (January 2007). Wu was featured in the DVD Solitude: In the Studio with Zhaoming Wu, released December 2007.
Read more about this topic: Zhaoming Wu
Famous quotes containing the word work:
“Human life itself may be almost pure chaos, but the work of the artist—the only thing he’s good for—is to take these handfuls of confusion and disparate things, things that seem to be irreconcilable, and put them together in a frame to give them some kind of shape and meaning. Even if it’s only his view of a meaning. That’s what he’s for—to give his view of life.”
—Katherine Anne Porter (1890–1980)
“We are weighed down, every moment, by the conception and the sensation of Time. And there are but two means of escaping and forgetting this nightmare: pleasure and work. Pleasure consumes us. Work strengthens us. Let us choose.”
—Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867)
“Then, bringing me the joy we feel when wee see a work by our favorite painter which differs from any other that we know, or if we are led before a painting of which we have until then only seen a pencil sketch, if a musical piece heard only on the piano appears before us clothed in the colors of the orchestra, my grandfather called me the [hawthorn] hedge at Tansonville, saying, “You who are so fond of hawthorns, look at this pink thorn, isn’t it lovely?””
—Marcel Proust (1871–1922)