Out for Summer

Presenting three artists with stylistic differences but united through the treatment of colour, line and form, Simon Lee Gallery encourages a warm exploration of memories and intimacy of the personal experiences of both the painter and the viewer. Each piece transcends the canvas to reach out to the audience, begging for past connections and introspective intimacy between painting, artist and viewer.

Featured artist, Qian Jiahua explores lines, form and structure and their relationship to the confines of the canvas. She challenges the traditions and limitations of flat space, creating abstract works that feel as though they are reaching out to viewers changing perceptions of the relationship between art and viewer. On another hand, Guo Hongwei's paintings feature a sense of adventure and fantasy, ideas inherent to summer. He finds inspiration in images and memories from his childhood. Through the technique of diluting his paintings, Hongwei creates a sense of replacement of memories. His works are familiar scenes and spark a playful joy within the viewer as if they depict the viewer’s own memories.

To finish, Lin Yi-Hsuan is the third featured artist in Out For Summer. Yi-Hsuan's paintings are heavily influenced by his identity, with Taiwanese and South American cultures finding their way onto his canvases. The closeness and vulnerability that Lin leaves on his pieces come from his representation of himself and through the multiple styles and overlapping symbols. Yi-Hsuan's works find a balance between total abstraction and repetition as he shares his identity on the canvas.

Out for Summer's time at the Simon Lee Gallery is fleeting much like this summer. Running until September 7, the collective works of Yi-Hsuan, Hongwei and Jiahua as the Out for Summer exhibit is soon to be a just a memory.