This painting was created in 2021. I spent half of this year teaching painting and the rest of the time traveling alone. There are less paintings and more poetry creation. Most of the feelings about the works come from what I saw during my travels.
As I experienced the differences in my friends' lives, I also experienced the love they each built on their city lives.
Inches: 23.6 x 31.5 in
Size without the frame: 60 cm x 80 cm
Country: China
Date: 2021
Materials: Acrylic paint on board
Condition: well preserved
Creative themes and style | My works revolve around the creative concept of "The land of humanity, People on the land". The people in the painting are people in nature, and the lines, shapes, and colors are close to nature. The nature in the painting is nature in the eyes of humans, existing in interaction with humans.I don’t pursue a series of works with a fixed and continuous style. I hope that the style of the pictures will synchronize with the changes in my life and always remain oscillating. The performance of the work must be in sync with the development of one's own life in order to be Sincere and powerful. Ideas are later.
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This work focuses on the figure and the smoking action, constructing a unique emotional field. In terms of the content, the figure’s posture is curled up, holding a cigarette. The body language conveys a lazy and alienated state. The exposed skin forms a visual connection with the simple background. In terms of composition, the figure occupies the core of the picture. The abstract lines and color blocks in the background are a treatment of weakening the space, making the viewers’ eyes focus on the figure’s demeanor and action, strengthening the subject’s presence. The color application is bold.
The pure mint - green background, the rich and delicate colors of the figure’s skin and hair, and the gray - purple of the cigarette and the red of the lips are high - contrast embellishments, activating the visual tension of the picture and creating an ambiguous and cold atmosphere. The painting style tends to be expressive. The free and shaping brushstrokes, in the stacking of brushstrokes on the figure’s face and skin, retain the painterliness while capturing the complex emotions of the figure, breaking away from the constraints of realism. The emotional expression is implicit and profound.
The action of smoking is often associated with emotions such as loneliness and contemplation. Combined with the figure’s demeanor, it conveys the immersion and detachment of the individual in their own world, as if revealing the hidden emotions in the heart. In terms of similar artists, it echoes Lucian Freud’s exploration of the inner spirit of figures and also has the brushstroke expressiveness of Chaim Soutine. However, this work has a more contemporary urban emotional texture. With a simple picture and strong color collisions, it interprets the privacy and commonality of individual emotions. It outlines a corner of the spiritual world of urban people with visual language, allowing viewers to experience the subtle and complex emotional flow in the interweaving of colors and postures. It is an artistic gaze at the state of individual existence.
The nudity is not intended as a sensual display but as a way to emphasize raw truth and vulnerability. The subject’s contracted pose, combined with the lack of covering, places her in an unshielded psychological state, compelling the viewer to confront the emotions of urban loneliness and exhaustion.
The background is a solid teal-green field, stripped of excess detail. This deliberate emptiness pushes all focus onto the figure while creating a sense of isolation in a void-like space. She appears as though extracted from the city and suspended in nothingness.
The cigarette functions not only as a prop but also as a symbol of self-dissolution. It suggests a fleeting pause, while also representing fatigue and self-anesthesia in modern urban life. Even if the smoke is barely visible, the atmosphere it evokes is deeply felt by the viewer.
Her eyes are half-lowered, avoiding direct contact with the viewer. This drifting, distant, and weary expression conveys the sense of emotional disconnection common in contemporary urban life. Such a gaze reflects the “narrative of detachment” often employed in modern portraiture, enhancing the work’s emotional resonance.
With its strong psychological tension and contemporary aesthetic, this painting is ideal for modern art spaces, private collections, study rooms, or small galleries. It provokes reflection on personal emotion and urban existence, offering both artistic value and cultural depth.
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More paintings from this series：
Careful Architecture of City Love 1
