Statement
My recent paintings depict
trolls, gnomes, and goblins that appear joyous and eternally optimistic. These
creatures are bathed in a sweet, ambrosial light and seem inexplicably content
in their misty, atmospheric setting.
In these paintings, I try to convey an ominous yet nebulous undercurrent that
lurks beneath this veneer of dreamy pleasantry. These paintings spring from
traditional painterly realism with their brushwork and painterly succulence; and
they glance back to the chiaroscuro of Chardin and the lush, pyrotechnical
brushwork of Frans Hal and John Singer Sargent. Concurrently, these paintings' colors are pumped to a steroidal intensity and their brushwork exaggerated to a
hysterical grandiosity. In doing so, these paintings' traditional underpinning
is mutated to embrace the fast paced technicolor of modernity, and ventures
beyond the interpretive confines now freed by the pluralism of contemporary art.
Dik F. Liu Summer '10