“Great painters must create masterpieces in order to be remembered by society and by history. They can’t just make ordinary paintings, and definitely should not waste their whole life on painting for commercial sales.“  – Yim Mau-Kun

“Realism is not about replication. It does not try to faithfully capture the subject like a camera. It is a process of extraction and distillation that requires creativity and tremendous skill.“  – Yim Mau-Kun

“Plein-air landscape painting is a process where natural (objective) beauty inosculate with artistic (subjective) beauty.  Natural beauty emphasizes “feeling” while artistic beauty focuses on “gusto,” or “fun.” If you concentrate on pursuing photo realism, then painting becomes a chore rather than pleasure.“  – Yim Mau-Kun

“I like painting people and have always preferred painting portraits from life as it is like conversing with life.  After all, is there anything more exciting and sophisticated than life itself?  Is not the ultimate expression of art the human form itself?”  – Yim Mau-Kun

“The beauty of a painting lies in the composition, the artist image, the ambiance, the colors and skillful use of brushstrokes.”  – Yim Mau-Kun

A Painting Trip of Xiangxi (Western Hunan) China

A Painting Trip of Xiangxi (Western Hunan) China

by | Jul 5, 2019 | , | 1 Comment

Note: The article below recounts a painting trip to Xiangxi (Western Hunan), China in 1988, and is a snapshot of China at the time, roughly a decade after the end of the Cultural Revolution and Deng Xiaoping opened up the country, and right before the 1989 crackdown...