Friday, November 22, 2019

From the Current Issue of Pratik: American painter Vivian Tsao's on her evolution as an Artist



Doorway at Dusk: From Jeddah to New York


One winter afternoon when I passed through the door to the room in the back, I saw that the sun had cast shadows of the brown door on the off white wall. A pair of tall boots stood next to the radiator. Outside the door was a bluish hallway. There were a small framed photo and clothing that was left on the rail. I suddenly saw a painting. I brought my easel to the narrow room and began the pastel.

In the moment to moment dialogue with light, I tried to capture what was in front of me. I discovered that the tones of the white doorframe kept on changing as the tones of the hallway continued to deepen. I did not work with any formula. Painting was like sailing out to the unknown.

I often worked in silence. In February, the symphonic play of color and light in pastel gradually took shape. One afternoon at the end of the session in 2017, I brought the easel back to the studio. In the bright light in New York, I studied the picture and realized that I had just added the last stroke to the new painting Doorway at Dusk. I put down the worn stick in my hand.

It was in late summer 1977 that I landed in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. I joined my husband who was teaching there. I had received an M.F.A. degree in painting from Carnegie Mellon University in the U.S. As if a dream had come true, I visited for the first time Paris and Rome on my way to the Middle East.

In the ride from the airport to our new home, I noticed outside the car window a giant setting sun. Its flaming red figure seemed to rest forever on the horizon. Yet suddenly, it left without a trace over the desert.

My sunny studio was on the second floor of an apartment building on the street corner. In early afternoon, a shepherd dressed in a robe often passed by with his goats. The melodic sound of the brass bells around their necks broke the silence of the sandy street.

As the package of my brushes and oil paints had yet to arrive, I thought of visiting the local graphic supply store. To my surprise, I came across a set of 200 pastels. Its fine gradations in red, yellow, blue and green impressed me. When I began exploring it the next day, I felt a strange familiarity with the new tool. I sensed that it opened a channel in blending and in creating the nuanced tones in my picture.

When I set up the easel in front of the mirror in my new studio, I noticed that the steady sun had outlined the features of the young woman in the reflection. The light in her eyes and the flowers on her veil intrigued me. I began painting without hesitation. In the process, I felt a sense of liberation. I was no longer concerned about the self. Ignited by curiosity, I used pastel and my finger to create on paper the tones and textures of my subject.

Several months after I arrived In Jeddah, I realized that I no longer tried to resolve my painting through theoretical thinking. In pastels such as Self-Portrait with Veil and The Poet, I jotted down my spontaneous responses to light.

When I saw for the first time the artworks by Spanish master Antonio Lopez Garcia in New York in 1986, I was struck by the intimate touch of his hand. The retrospective show included oils, drawings and sculptures by the Magic Realist. I felt an affinity with the works from life of his daughter Maria and of his uncle, painter Antonio Lopez Torres.

His nuanced drawings in pencil sometimes took years to complete. In infinite changing tones, he captured child Maria in a peacoat. Her presence was gentle, modest and contemporary. In the drawing  Antonio Lopez Torres’House, the elderly artist passed through the familiar interior in layered silvery light. The back of Torres in an overcoat drew me in as if in a dream. Whether a window scene of a street or a mural-sized cityscape, Lopez created images over long periods of observation. The emotions triggered by his brush were subliminal. They suppress yet transcend.
Recently, in the narrow room in New York, the afternoon sun from the two tall windows shined on the Chinese scroll on the wall. The rhythmic strokes of Chinese calligraphy by my father took me back to his study in Taipei shortly before I left for graduate studies in the U.S. He wrote the poem by Li Yi-shan in Tang Dynasty at my request. He carefully stamped his seal in red ink after writing. Nearby, the bronze-toned spines of the books World Art Series published by Kawade Shobo in Japan stood on the hand-made bookcase. Before I had a chance to see the original artworks by Corot and Cézanne, the series was my Western art museum.

My middle school was within walking distance from the National Palace Museum in Taiwan. I longed to visit the Museum in construction outside my classroom window. My first visit in 1965 led me to the discovery of the hand scroll by Emperor Hui-tsung of Sung Dynasty. In his personal slender gold style, he wrote the Poem. I felt transported when I read the last lines of his writing. On darkened silk, the bouncing strokes of the palm-sized characters read,

“ The dancing butterflies lost their way on the fragrant path
   Their wings chased after the evening breeze.”

The scrolls of Hui-tsung and of the landscapes by Chinese masters echoed the mountains and waters that surrounded my school. They and the Saturday art lessons in the studio of Prof. Sun To-Ze helped plant the seed for my journey in art across the oceans.


 Taiwan-born, American painter, Vivian Tsao has exhibited her oils and pastels in places such as the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Butler Institute of American Art, Tenri Cultural Institute, Queens Museum and Ceres Gallery in the U.S., and the National Museum of History in Taiwan. Her art is reproduced in books such as “Paintings by Vivian Tsao” published by the National Museum of History and “100 New York Painters” by Cynthia Dantzic.  She is also a recipient of Artist-in-Residence grant from the New York State Council on the Arts






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