Lin Fengmian’s Wild Geese

“You do not have to be good. / You do not have to walk on your knees / for a hundred miles through the desert repenting”, is how Mary Oliver starts off Wild Geese, a short, heart-warming poem about coming home to oneself, the same way wild geese return to their nesting grounds after long…

Van Gogh, Hiroshige’s Cherry Blossoms, and the Impermanence of Life

Reading time: 20 minutes “If we study Japanese art, we see a man who is undoubtedly wise, philosophic, and intelligent who spends his time doing what?,” wondered 35-year-old Vincent van Gogh in a September 1888 letter to his brother, Theo. Admiring the intrinsic wisdom of the Japanese artist who is unanchored from the dispassionate, reasoning…

Tsuguharu Foujita – Self-Portrait (1936)

As a Japanese artist arriving in Paris in 1913, Tsuguharu Foujita quickly befriended and got acquainted with all the great painters, including Modigliani and Picasso, as well with socialites and celebrities like Josephine Baker. The Japanese embodied the exoticism that Europeans were longing for and he was quick to profit from it. With his bowl…

Tetsuya Ishida – Recalled (1998)

His art captured what it meant coming of age in a highly industrial society, which was more concerned with its economic gains than with its own humanity. Tetsuya Ishida’s surreal paintings depict the dehumanization of the Japanese people, turned into machines, smothered and constricted by the high expectations imposed upon them by a rigid culture….

Spotlight: Johnson Tsang

What if you could make your dreams come true? Hong Kong based artist Johnson Tsang did just that with Lucid Dream, a series of porcelain sculptures inspired by his dreams and meditations. Whimsical and Surrealist, his art explores the subconscious and reminds us that our faces are nothing but masks that can be stretched and…

Zeng Fanzhi – Blue (2015)

He is one of China’s most celebrated contemporary artists. Blending Western art with Chinese calligraphy, Zeng Fanzhi’s art was initially heavily influenced by German Expressionism. More recently, Zeng started to branch out (pun intended) and embrace a more abstract style, all while bringing to fruition his signature motif – the amalgam of intertwining lines which…