Tang's - Husband - Blue
150 x 150 cm
Acrylic on Canvas
2016

The Tang People series
In my portrait series, Met in Shanghai is about my friends in real life. They come from all over the world, having different careers. Since they all live at the same time, these portraits could be considered a horizontal depiction. However, I am also quite interested in painting historical figures that I find in ancient Chinese paintings. Although they are not people I see in life, I can still capture their vivid expressions by observing the depictions by the old masters. When I started to paint the Buddha Guanyin, I went to Dunhuang. Deeply touched by the Dunhuang murals, I found a lot of inspiration there. Many figures in the Tang People series come from those murals. I particularly like the ordinary people’s scenes of living in the Western Paradise illustrated in the Sutra Narrative Painting, for the people’s different expressions were depicted in such a vivid and exciting way. That is where I found the source of inspiration for the small portraits of the Tang people. Moreover, since the Dunhuang murals are thousands of years old, artists' figures were illustrated by artists from different times. I think my Tang People portraits could be considered a vertical depiction.