Wennie Huang
“All three of these pastel landscapes were completed this summer as demonstrations for a studio class I teach at the Pastel Society of America, which moved to an online format in Zoom earlier this spring due to the pandemic. I paired snapshots I had taken during travels in previous summers as reference images reinterpreted in pastel using the palette and approach of various painters. Because summer travel plans were cancelled, drawing from travel photos allowed me a chance to relive and rediscover places I had enjoyed, allowing both my hand and mind to wander in lieu of my body.
’The Melt’ combines a photograph I’d taken on a summer excursion to Colorado near the Black Canyon of the Gunnison in 2018, with the palette and approach of painter, Wayne Thibaud, most well-known for his paintings of cakes, pies, and pastries, but in this instance, referencing his paintings of northern California. Thiebaud mentions his inspiration to become a painter inspired by Rosa Bonheur’s monumental painting, The Horse Fair, hanging in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
’Riding Across the Bay’ reinterprets a photograph of my son on a bike during our annual (2020 being the exception) summer trip to Barnstable, Massachusetts, the bicep of Cape Cod, where I teach watercolor workshops. Here, I’ve adopted the palette and geometric reduction of painter, Richard Diebenkorn, known for his more abstract work based on landscape structures, but here referencing his many paintings of figures within the landscape. Diebenkorn himself was inspired by the work of Henri Matisse.
With ‘Behind St. Mary’s’, I transformed a nearly completely green photograph taken also in Cape Cod last summer into a multicolored pastel with floral notes using the palette of symbolist painter, Odilon Redon, and in particular his landscape paintings which are much less well-known than his more mystical figurative imagery. ”
Contact the Artist:
Email: hiwennie@gmail.com
Website: www.wenniehuang.com