TINA KENG GALLERY

D06 / Taipei / Taiwan

+886-2-2659-0798
info@tinakenggallery.com
https://www.tinakenggallery.com

Marrying the qualities of Chinese literati painting and Western modern art, Sanyu developed a unique style of expression. In the days when he first arrived in Paris, Sanyu was intoxicated by the romantic milieu of the exotic city, which inspired his basic palette of pink, white, and black, lending his work a clean elegance rendered by joyous calligraphic lines. However, with the onset of World War II and the decline of his family’s financial fortunes, the levity evident in his earlier body of work disappeared. And although his characteristic aloofness remained, his work eventually took on a touch of gloom. Later, Sanyu found additional inspiration in lacquerware, injecting healthy doses of folk art into his work, where he teased out simple lines against dark backgrounds in bold compositions, featuring such themes as nudity, scenery, flowers, and animals. In his later years, impoverished and forlorn, the artist saw his nostalgia cascading into his paintings, where small, isolated creatures appear lost and lonely, and even the flowers in vases and pots seem wistfully frail.