Gao Ping's Urban Perspective

By YANG YONGLI

Still Life,60x50cm,1999.

GAO Ping's candid artistic expression effectively communicates to art lovers a feeling of tranquility and peace. Her inspiration springs largely from scenery, the urban scenarios of her Cities series imbued with the spiritual. Metaphors implicit in the realist and conceptual images of her paintings -- in tacit dialogues between human forms and mystic symbols against an urban backdrop -- expand to the full the cityscape concept of her paintings.

Artistic insight as expressed by Gao Ping stems from her innately creative imagery. Her work is material extension of her thoughts and emotions. Her paintings depict buildings, either earmarked for demolition or under construction, against an almost pastoral setting of colorful clouds, flowers in blossom, and perching birds. They are images of Gao Ping's concept of reality, tinged with reminiscence.

Scenery, 110x90cm, 1999.

The atmosphere of Gao Ping's cities is palpable. One can almost hear the strictly urban noise permeating her buildings that stops short of entirely overwhelming the eternally mellow song of life and energy. Gao Ping finds her exact pitch of expression through her understanding of modern life. "I try to represent an ambience of quietude in my art. Living myself in a cityscape, it is a part of my life eminently expressible."

Gao Ping takes full artistic license in her use of materials. The structural lines of a draft become consolidated and intensified in the process of painting, and unforeseen effects from the combined use of charcoal, ink and oil inadvertently add depth to the painting. Such happy accidents show the flexible state of mind in which this vital young artist does her work.

City of Desire,2000.

Gao Ping was born in the 1970s. Her works represent her own style, as well as distinguishable features of her generation. She lives in a society that is experiencing a period of surge, so her works reflect soaring spirits, along with engaging traces of immaturity.

As Gao Ping continues to discover the world for herself, her fascination with familiar, tangible aspects of life mingle with infinite fantasy, expressed in the dreamlike quality of her work.