The theme of this year's painting clearly states one - the makeup of desire. People's various desires are wrapped under various makeups. Desires are the intertwining of happiness and pain in life. Either straightforward or subtle, they will appear in makeup, forming a profound look of an era.
Inches: 15.7 x 15.7 in
Size without the frame: 40 x 40 cm
Country: China
Date: 2025
Materials: Oil paint on wood
Condition: well preserved
Creative themes and style | My works revolve around the creative concept of "The land of humanity, People on the land".The people in the painting are people in nature, and the lines, shapes, and colors are close to nature. The nature in the painting is nature in the eyes of humans, existing in interaction with humans.I don’t pursue a series of works with a fixed and continuous style. I hope that the style of the pictures will synchronize with the changes in my life and always remain oscillating. The performance of the work must be in sync with the development of one's own life in order to be Sincere and powerful.Ideas are later.
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Artwork Interpretation
Stylistic Approach and Emotional Form
This painting employs portraiture as its central subject, yet resists naturalistic rendering. The figure’s facial features and contours are built from fluid, slightly distorted lines, capturing inner fluctuations rather than surface precision. This recalls the “non-conformist realism” of Chaim Soutine, who used distortion to reveal emotional turbulence beneath outward appearances. The blue-to-purple gradient of the hair and the layered color washes across the shoulders transform the body into a vessel for emotion, rather than a literal likeness.
Composition and Spatial Dynamics
The composition adheres to a centralized structure, with the figure dominating the canvas. The deep brown background compresses space, drawing the viewer’s attention toward the face and the hazy blossoms that abstractly bloom from the figure’s chest. This arrangement suggests a symbolic interplay between figure and environment, where the body merges with ephemeral forms of light and color.
Color and Psychological Resonance
The palette is marked by a vibrant interplay: blue-purple hair, pink-yellow skin tones, and warm whites of clothing all collide against the muted darkness of the background. This tension between high saturation and low brightness communicates emotional dualities—ardor and fatigue, clarity and ambiguity. In this way, the artist’s method recalls Pierre Bonnard, who often used subjective chromatic recombinations to translate fleeting emotional atmospheres into visible form.
Brushwork and Tactile Sensation
The brushwork is spontaneous and varied, alternating between thick impasto and thin scrumbles. The airy, almost dissolving textures of the clothing and the glowing warmth of the skin are sculpted purely through the pressure and rhythm of brushstrokes. While this echoes Lucian Freud’s tactile brushwork, the severity is softened here into a more tender, emotive embrace, emphasizing intimacy rather than confrontation.
Theme and Emotional Interpretation
Thematically, this painting is less a literal portrait than a psychological and emotional landscape. The title’s suggestion of the “end of the scorching sun” is embodied not through depiction of light itself, but through the figure’s faint smile and wavering gaze, which hold the residue of intensity now fading. It evokes a liminal state—tranquility after tumult, wistfulness following fervor. The portrait thus becomes a metaphorical reflection on the passage of experience and the emotional afterglow of waning intensity.
Similar Works Reference
Luo Erchun, Portrait of a Young Girl
Uses high-purity color and liberated form to transmit human emotion. Like this painting, it weaves a net of feeling through chromatic fields, transforming color into a direct conduit of inner life.
Pierre Bonnard, Nude in Backlight
Evokes atmosphere through chromatic subtlety and conveys sentiment through light and hue. Both works employ subjective color as an emotional language, interrogating the inner world rather than the external likeness.
Chaim Soutine, Portrait of a Woman
Deforms contour and exaggerates features to capture the instability of inner emotion, resonating with the slightly distorted expressiveness of this painting’s face.
Lucian Freud, Girl with a White Dog
Uses layered brushwork and tactile surfaces to embody psychological intimacy. This painting shares that dedication to the human figure as a site of emotional revelation, though with a gentler tonality.
What is the logic behind the color pairing of the flowers in the painting?
A: Flowers covering the body use warm tones like yellow and pink, with relatively clear forms. Parts further from the body gradually shift towards cooler tones. These elements echo each other, creating a rich and nuanced visual effect.
How is the color transition on the character's face uniquely handled?
A: While the overall transition is natural, the painting deliberately retains the clear shape of flat brushstrokes. This technique makes the contours of the color shapes subtly visible throughout the transition.
How are the colors on the character's shoulder differentiated from, yet connected to, the background?
A: Warm brown tones from the background are mixed into the shoulder colors, achieving color harmony and integration. However, clear brushstrokes and distinct color shifts at the body's structural points create significant distance from the flatter background, enhancing the painting's visual sense of space.
What is the purpose of the small object on the right side of the painting?
A: The object on the right guides the protagonist's gaze, forming the painting's primary directional movement and point of interaction. The small animal within the flowers, the floral clusters, and the human figure interact together. This represents the artist's hopeful vision of harmony between humanity and nature.
How do warm and cool color contrasts create atmosphere in the painting?
A: Using a predominantly warm brown palette, the interweaving of warm and cool colors crafts a layered atmosphere that is both dreamlike and rational.
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