Awareness post: Liu Xiaodong

For this awareness post I chose Liu Xiaodong, a contemporary artist who lives in Beijing. He was born in 1963, and paints snapshots of people and everyday life. He is a leading figure of the Chinese neorealism movement. I like the way he paints figures, along with his color schemes. I spent a lot of time looking for his favorite pieces of mine and these were my favorite three. I particularly like the hat and dog on the wall in the last piece. I also like the bottles on the dresser and all of the colors on the left side of the panting. In the middle painting, I really like the cop car positioned in the woods. I like the way the water is painted as well, and the colors on the figures are very nice. The color scheme of this piece is less what I'm going for when compared to the color scheme on the last piece. I really like the neckline of the swimsuit on the first piece along with the highlights in the water and on the figure. The gesture of a face may be helpful as I attempt to place people in my compositions. In all of his pieces, I like his brush strokes. I particularly like the ones that are soft. Most of his work is oil on canvas. I hope to use inspiration from his color use on future paintings. He works from life which is really interesting. He sometimes poses people to convey the message he wants to. I don't paint fast enough to be able to do something like that, but I think I'm going to try to do a very quick painting of someone willing when I get the chance, because I think it could be a helpful exercise.