Creative Coding
Painting Experiment
Perhaps the stars that we can barely see in the urban night sky help us to reorient and restore something within us that is lost in the glare of the city lights.
The landscape of memory is an ongoing exploration in fine art painting. My paintings consider the landscape as it relates to the spirit. In order to seek a sense of identity and belonging, I paint cosmic scenes, which remind me of the scale of our world. When I look at the night sky, I realize how small we are within the cosmos, and I consider the mystery that we are all born into.
As the technology is changing our way to see the landscape, I take the creative coding (computer vision) an approach to exploring the possibilities of painting and to understanding the new relationships between humans, landscape and memory. Currently, I am curious about how machine learning could impact on my paintings. I am exploring to use ml5.js and TensorFlow.js with pre-train models to create generative landscape paintings.
Tools:
Canvas, Yupo paper, Oil painting, Processing, OpenCV, MobileNets, Tensorflow
"What is art in the final analysis? Art is the shining forth of one's interiority."
― Mu Xin
RECENT WORKS
The Night is Strring, Digital painting with webcam, 2019
STORY
Be an artist
When I was a kid, I was fascinated in Chinese ink landscape paintings. With different shadows of ink and beautiful strokes, the whole world is explained in the picture. Experiencing art is the greatest thrill I know. That is how I start to paint and make art. In 2012, I came to the United States and started my bachelor of fine art at the University of Washington, School of Art and Design. During my undergraduate, my interests shift to all forms of art, European painting, African art, cubism, pop art, etc.
My idea of paintings is connecting the audience's experience and my experience together as the abstract landscapes are the trigger. Inspired by French expressionism and modernism paintings, I start to explore different mediums that reinvent my approach to art and storytelling.
The origin, Ink on paper, 2013
MEDIUM EXPLORATIONS
In 2014, I started a painting project without a brush. I tried my fingers, tissue paper, wall texture, etc. The approach of embracing controlling opens a new door and creates some magic moments
The Starry Night, Ink on yupo paper, 2014
Reminiscence, Ink on yupo paper, 2014
OIL PAINTINGS
In 2015, inspired by expressionism artists, Wuji Zhao, and Dequn Zhu, and American abstractism, Mark Rothko, I start to paint large scale oil paintings. Works are in the permanent collection of University of Washington. During the show, I had several conversations with strangers. They shared the stories about their hometowns when they saw my paintings. At that moment, I felt a mysterious power that connects us and shares the same memories.
Wandering , Oil on Canvas, 2016, 72'' x 48''
Jupiter Foretelling , Oil on Canvas, 2016, 72'' x 48''
GENERATIVE LANDSCAPE AND MEMORY
In 2019, I moved to San Francisco and started to study in Web Design and New Media at Academy of Art University. The digital world is fascinating to me. Each time I take the bus, I saw the expanding highrise in San Francisco, the countless cars and vehicles. A lot of questions come to my mind. Then, I interested in the artificial landscapes and generative objects.
Different brush exploration in processing 3 development environment.
I started with explorations in different kinds of digital brush in processing, some are control by mouse, some are track by webcam. Base on computer vision algorithm, the program will trach the light through webcam. Here is the painting demo:
GENERATIVE PAINTINGS
The City, generative painting, 2019
The Night was Stirring, generative painting, 2019