Painting

Limina are the thresholds of consciousness, places of transformation, where the physical and the phantasmic collide and where roam the most magickal of creations. They are gateways to a parallel world superimposed onto the more tangible one, complex, wonderous, yet so very elusive. As a neurodivergent person, I often marvel at how my perceptions to the world vary in consonance with my mental and emotional state, in an automatic and spontaneous way not unlike my art making. In the “Limina” series, each painting is initiated by a shift of mentality, guided by visions and messages from the universe, and powered with impulsivity and unbidden passion, which all resolve by the random yet thoughtfully orchestrated interactions of atypical materials. The result is an amalgamation of textures and colors in the scale between intimate and immersive.

Flames Unseen (Shadowsphere) (from the "Limina" series), 2021
Acrylic, watercolor, poster color, PVA glue, pumice, natural hollow ceramic spheres, silica dioxide powder, India ink, white ink, texture watercolor medium, iridescent watercolor medium and glass flakes on muslin fabric
36 x 34 inches

Loose Ends (from the "Limina" series), 2021
Texture watercolor medium, iridescent watercolor medium, natural hollow ceramic spheres, PVA glue, acrylic, poster color and white ink on canvas
30 x 30 inches

Pathfinder (from the "Limina" series), 2021
PVA glue, natural hollow ceramic spheres, acrylic, poster color, India ink and white ink on muslin fabric
20 x 16 inches

Frenzy (from the "Limina" series), 2021
Texture watercolor medium, iridescent watercolor medium, natural hollow ceramic spheres, acrylic and poster color on muslin fabric
20 x 20 inches

Public collection

Sólstafir (Not Unlike the Waves), 2020
Acrylic, alcohol ink, pearlescent and interference pigments on stretched tracing paper, 4 panels
Approx. 90 x 14 inches

Aurora swims in the ether,
Emerald fire scars the night sky.

Sólstafir!

Amber streams from Sol
Are not unlike the waves
Of the sea, nor the endless horizon of ice.

Sólstafir!

Aurora swims in the ether,
Emerald fire paints the twilight.

Heiðrún bleeds the golden nectar
For the rising sun and the moon.
The midnight wolves who watch over the dawn.
The golden dawn.

Sólstafir!

—— Agalloch “Not Unlike the Waves”

Inspiration of this 4-panel polyptych comes from Agalloch’s “Not Unlike the Waves,” a folk metal song loosely based on Norse mythology. Both the song’s rhythmic and tonal quality and lyrical imagery are interpreted into visual form through material interactions and highlighted by different texture and reflectivity of the surface. The Icelandic word “Sólstafir” (which literally means “sun letters” or “sun characters”) describes a meteorological phenomenon commonly known as “sunbeam,” particularly “crepuscular rays” when the sun is at or below the horizon during twilight hours. Using such a powerful phenomenon as the major concept, each panel depicts an idea from the song of both mythological creatures and myth-related natural phenomena, of Odin’s wolves and Heiðrún’s mead, auroras and sunbeams, the midnight sky and the golden dawn, with a rough timeline from night to day across the entire piece. The vertical form and tower-like shape represent the pole-like structure universally related to ceremony and worship, accentuating the experience of awe as viewers walk around it.

Side view

This piece is created as a visual rendition of a Nightwish song Turn loose the Mermaids.

The Mermaids You Turn Loose (Brought Back Your Tears), 2020
Acrylic, white ink, pearlescent and interference pigments on muslin fabric
10 x 10 inches

Sunless (日月无光), 2020
Acrylic and white ink on muslin fabric
20 x 20 inches

Inspired by Chris Marker's film Sans Soleil (Sunless), this piece captures the essence of my experience walking through the woods numerous times over the years.

“What is the name of those things you see when you close your eyes? I think it’s ‘phosphenes’ - the reddish patterns, the little stripes and dots and blurry little lines you see floating around when you close your eyes. And no one really knows what they are or what they’re for. Sometimes they seem to be brought up by sound or random electrical magnetic firing. Sometimes phosphenes are called prisoner’s cinema - some kind of eternal, plotless avant-garde animated movie. Or maybe they’re just screen savers - holding patterns that just sit there so your brain won’t fall asleep.”

—— Laurie Anderson, Heart of a Dog

Side view

Limbo, a place between awake and asleep, reality and dreams, hell and heaven. Every night when I lie in darkness and try to fall asleep, I see “phosphenes,” the dots and squiggly lines floating around, morphing, flickering. Every night I’m in limbo, stuck in between, watching this abstract animation until the blessing of sleep eventually comes, or tormented in the hell of insomnia until the next day. Over the years I learn to befriend this unusual experience, willingly losing my perception of space and time, only to appreciate the subtle changes in color, the various shades of black, a different, bizarre world.

The Stars in Our Mind, 2019
Acrylic ink, alcohol ink, acrylic marker and interference pigments on canvas
30 x 30 inches

Public collection

At the beginning there is nothing but the dark, empty void. With the first firing of neurons comes the light, and memories begin to form the stars in our mind. In this painting, the formation and evolution of memories is depicted processively through a variety of random and deliberate mark-making approaches.

Sopor Æternus and The Ensemble of Shadows (Ghost & Poppy), 2019
Acrylic skin (diptych)
16 x 11.5 inches

A tribute to Anna-Varney Cantodea and particularly her 3-EP project A Triptychon of Ghosts which greatly inspired the creation of The Witch's Garden.

I painted When the Lightning Strikes based on my experience of being in the middle of a thunderstorm at a beach in Hong Kong. Coming without a warning and leaving without a trace, the merciless violence of natural forces overwhelmed all my senses, rendering individual thoughts extremely insignificant. At such a powerful moment, all I could was to stand still and observe in awe.

This 8-panel polyptych is my first attempt to interpret music, a time-based art form, as still images of superimposed colors and patterns. Inspired by Hendel’s Water Music Suite in F Major, each panel represents a movement in the suite where rhythm translates into patterns and tonality into colors, while maintaining the overall ambience of a royal barge concert.

Unravel, 2018
Acrylic on canvas
30 x 24 inches

The double meaning of the word “unravel,” “to destroy” and “to resolve,” best represents “a destructive way of working” in my artistic practice where I work processively, inspired by constant observations and/or connections with past experiences. Walking the line between spontaneity and deliberation, I portray the rhythm where the light meets the shadow with a combination of gestural marks and contour lines.

Release, 2018
Acrylic on canvas
24 x 18 inches

A Walk in the Woods, 2018
Acrylic on canvas
30 x 30 inches

Private collection

“The artist is the lover of Nature, therefore he is her slave and her master.”

—— Rabindranath Tagore, Stray Birds

Amid the dark and silence of midnight trees a walk becomes a meditation, where reality subsides and all senses unconsciously mix. It is one of the perfect moments that calms, liberates, and reminds me that Magic still exists.

In early 2018, I became interested in fluid painting and the unique qualities of a transparent support, and had since been experimenting with a variety of materials and approaches. Summer Night #2 is the most successful among my first attempts incorporating this new technique. By exploring different levels of transparency and textures result from the unpredictable interactions between different paint additives, I am able to depict my vision of nature based on years of observations.