Personal Biography
Although I started learning and practicing visual art when I was nine, I truly found my passion for art two years later when I visited the largest religious monument in the world—Angkor Wat in Cambodia. One morning, as the egg-yolked sunlight dipped the monument in golden honey, the lifeless structure transformed into a lively person, chanting ancient tales of people who passed through those arches. I experienced how art could influence, and be influenced by, nature. Since then, I have strived to conjure similar impacts.
Through numerous hours of working with acrylic, graphite, and watercolor, I gradually realized that nothing can stop an artist’s expression on the canvas. Whether it is an acrylic portrait seeping through the canvas or penciled swans swimming in a surreal dream, art is a kind of expression. Philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein said, “The limits of language are the limits of my world,” but art transcends language. It speaks to our individual and communal aesthetics. Ask why everyone can sense pride and grievance in Delacroix’s Liberty Leading the People and tender love in Klimt’s The Kiss. The answer is art.
The expression of what cannot be defined yet defines us all is why I am drawn to art.
“Reincarnation” (Acrylic painting on canvas 20 x 16): This painting was inspired by the kitchen scene in a Tibetan temple I visited last summer. The elderly cook and the shabby facilities are truthful depictions of real objects, whereas the blossoming tree is created from my imagination. Through the contrast, I tried to manifest what I felt in the temple—reincarnation and eternity.
“Warriors of Desert” (Acrylic painting on canvas 20 x 16): The cacti surrounded by vibrant yellow bushes stand erect like pillars that plunge into the sky. They are nature’s wonder, thriving in the harshest environment. The mountain range in the backdrop watches these quiet warriors of the desert.
“Ozymandias” (Acrylic painting on canvas 20 x 16): The mask belongs to the Egyptian king of kings—Ozymandias, whose once unsurpassable glory now lies buried in sands. Like its owner, the mask is buried in the River of Time, no longer intact though still intimidating. Glory decays, fame fades, and time ticks on.
