Blue Bayou

Chinese Artist Gao Xiaoyun’s Dream-Like Landscapes In Oil Give A Divergent Take On Traditional Chinese Ink Paintings.

- Eva Wong Nava

Gazing at one of Gao Xiaoyun’s landscapes from the ‘Chinese Water Town’ series is like entering a lyrical dream: the viewer is transported to a scene of tranquility and stillness that even the lone boat does not disrupt. In each of his landscapes floats a Chinese sanpan boat occupied by the ubiquitous lone boatman that is evocative of classical Chinese landscape ink paintings. But Gao is not a master in Chinese Ink. Instead, he is a graduate of the Department of Oil Painting at the China Academy of Fine Art.

Gao was born in Shanxi province in 1977. He is based in Shanghai where he participated in the development of the Shanghai Pudong Artist Village and Puxi Art District. His landscapes are reminiscent of rural life which is fast disappearing as China speeds up on urbanisation, and represent abstract desires to return to the idyll when man communed with nature.