In 2017, I had become curious about Chinese art. Growing up in Toronto, I had very little contact with the art connected to my heritage, only echos of it through Western depictions or Hong Kong TV shows.
In a public library, as I was doing research on this topic, I had my first encounter with shan shui paintings. Shan shui (山水), or quite literally mountain-water, paintings are traditional Chinese paintings. The name reflects the subject of these paintings, typically done with brush and ink, these paintings are philosophical because it doesn’t depict reality, but instead the painter’s thoughts about nature. Adopting some of the compositional, elemental, and colour rules - I started an ongoing project of shan shui pieces. These are the visual manifestations of my (ever-evolving) identity as a Chinese-Canadian and of my real-life, real-time experiences.
So far, they’ve manifested into mixed media on canvas and digital art.
Please inquire about pieces via email.
Prints of the digital versions are available in my print shop.